President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that many innovations in digital technologies have a strong presence in every field in today's world, from economy to transportation, from defense to diplomacy, from agriculture to trade, and said,"As Turkey, we are one of the countries that has adapted most quickly to this dizzying change and even pioneered it in many areas."

In his speech at the Türkiye Educational Technologies Summit (TETZ) organized by the Ministry of National Education at a hotel in Bahçelievler, President Erdoğan greeted the Ministry staff, teachers, students and participants.

Expressing his pleasure for being at the summit, which is being held for the sixth time this year, Erdoğan congratulated the Ministry of National Education, Minister Yusuf Tekin and his team for successfully organizing the traditional summit this year as well, and thanked the stakeholders of the organization.

Erdoğan said to the guests who attended the program from Türkiye and different countries of the world,"Welcome to Istanbul, the apple of our eye" and thanked the names that stand out with their success in academia, technology and business world for their contributions to the program.

Wishing the summit, where the role of artificial intelligence and innovation in education will be discussed in all aspects, to be beneficial, Erdoğan said,"Today, we have also concluded the 2024-2025 academic year. On this occasion, I kiss the eyes of all our children who are experiencing the excitement of their report cards all around our country, and I pray to God for superior success for each of our children. I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to the precious families of these children who will shape the future of Türkiye and realize our vision of the Century of Turkey in every aspect, to all our teachers who selflessly serve in all 81 provinces from Edirne to Iğdır, in our villages, districts and city centers, and to all the soldiers of our education army who work devotedly regardless of snow, rain and working hours."

President Erdoğan remembered with mercy and gratitude Aybüke Yalçın, Necmettin Yılmaz, who were martyred while practicing their teaching profession, and all the martyred teachers who sacrificed their lives for the same sacred ideal.

Wishing God's mercy upon all the teachers who contributed to his education and those who passed away, and a healthy life for those who are still alive, Erdoğan wished God's clarity of mind to all students who will take the Higher Education Institutions Exam on Saturday and Sunday this week.

Emphasizing that we are all living in a period where technology has deeply penetrated into every aspect of life, Erdoğan said:

Many innovations such as digital technologies, big data, artificial intelligence and quantum computing have a strong presence in every field in today’s world, from economy to transportation, from defense to diplomacy, from agriculture to trade. While access to information has become easier than ever before, the processes of processing, analyzing and using information have also accelerated to the same extent. As Turkey, we are one of the countries that have adapted most quickly to this dizzying change and even pioneered it in many areas. Both the historical successes we have achieved in the defense industry in the last 23 years and the revolutionary moves we have made in education technologies constitute the strongest indicators of this truth. I would like to emphasize the following point here. Education is one of the most vital fields for a country, not only in terms of its physical conditions and technological dimension, but also in terms of its intellectual infrastructure. Education systems that cannot keep up with the times in terms of their curriculum, teaching staff, facilities and capabilities are doomed to failure.

President Erdoğan said,"We are increasing our cooperation between BIP and our Ministry in order to strengthen our data security. We will encourage communication between our students and between parents and teachers to be carried out through the BiP application."

In his speech at the Turkey Education Technologies Summit (TETZ) organized by the Ministry of National Education at a hotel in Bahçelievler, President Erdoğan said that the end of an education approach that has severed its ties with its roots and history, turned its back on its scientific and intellectual heritage, and left its future to the mercy of foreigners and foreign ideologies will be disappointment.

Erdoğan, who quoted the late intellectual Samiha Ayverdi's observation that"There is a truth that every citizen who has bowed their heads to the troubles and causes of the country should know. That is the truth that the issue that should be handled as a matter of life and death is our education and training policy," continued as follows:

"We understand better every passing day how accurate these findings are. In light of these truths, we have opened a new page for education since the first day we took office. We have put an end to injustices such as coefficient applications and headscarf bans. From physical and technical facilities to class sizes, we have provided our educational institutions with a modern and strong structure that meets the needs of the age. We have renewed the curriculum and strengthened access to education. We have significantly improved the technological infrastructure. We have rebuilt an education system that is in harmony with our national and spiritual qualities based on our human and knowledge-oriented cultural and civilization values. One of the most critical components of this system was the Fatih project, which we launched in 2011 and took to a much higher level with the Turkey Century Education Model."

President Erdoğan stated that within the scope of this project, which was implemented to bring digital technologies to every classroom and to popularize the use of technology in schools, the network infrastructure installation of 21,576 schools has been completed so far, and that they will establish the network infrastructure of 8,200 more schools in a very short time and provide high-speed internet service to these schools.

Erdoğan also stated that they provided high-speed and secure fiber internet access to 13,800 schools and that they continue to work to bring this service to 18,000 more schools, and that they provided 27,962 schools with cable internet, 4,382 schools with mobile internet, and 1,040 schools in rural areas with internet via satellite.

Erdoğan, drawing attention to the fact that they have effectively established internet service in all schools, said,"We have placed a total of 626,441 interactive boards in our classrooms, 51,758 of which were installed in the last 2 years, so that our students can benefit from a modern, participatory and rich learning environment. With this number, we have made Türkiye the first and only country to have completed the installation of interactive boards in almost all of its classrooms. We have established information technology classes in our schools to develop the information technology literacy and competencies of our students. We are updating our 1980 information technology class, which has reached the end of its useful life."

Erdoğan emphasized that they will strengthen the digital education infrastructure with 3,480 classrooms by establishing 1,500 new classrooms fully equipped with the latest technology, and reported that they have added 503 innovative classrooms to schools this year, in addition to these classrooms containing laptops and desktop computers, local robotic coding kits, three-dimensional printers and interactive boards.

President Erdoğan stated that they strongly support students and teachers in digital education with their education and informatics network and said,"With 3,169 courses, 77,014 contents, 3,407 books and 85,764 questions, EBA has become one of the bedside resources for our students and teachers. With the ongoing EBA Academy, our students will be able to receive education in various areas that support their personal development independent of the curriculum. Again, with our individual learning platform MEBİ, we contribute to the academic development of our students and follow the development of each student on an individual level."

Underlining that they support innovative educational approaches of teachers and administrators and diversify technological education methods with the teacher information network, Erdoğan pointed out that they continue to introduce new technologies to education studies with the TEA Platform where teachers share knowledge and experience with their colleagues from different countries, the Public Education Centers Information Network Platform where citizens at home and abroad benefit from many educations, the foreign language learning platform that we will open for use as of the new academic year, the robotic coding platform that we put into practice to train the scientists and engineers of the future, and many other services.

President Erdoğan stated that they are aware that artificial intelligence will offer great opportunities in education and will lead to important paradigm shifts, and said,"We continue our work in a multifaceted manner, taking this fact into consideration. We prepared the Artificial Intelligence in Education Policy Document and shared it with our public and education community last week. We aim to raise young individuals who produce technology, develop solutions and question with our elective artificial intelligence courses that we have integrated into the middle school and high school curriculum."

"WE WILL PROVIDE SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT TO MORE THAN 100 NEW ENTREPRENEURS IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS"

Stating that they produce artificial intelligence-supported solutions in areas such as university preparation, professional development and multilingual learning with the FEYZA and HİSAR projects, Erdoğan noted the following:

"We have started working on our artificial intelligence-supported assistant application that our teachers can use in their daily teaching activities. We are growing and strengthening our education technologies ecosystem every day. We are developing new collaborations between our education technologies sector, which includes 1280 companies, and our Ministry. With these projects, we will provide significant support to more than 100 new entrepreneurs in the next 5 years. With the collaboration to be made between our Ministry and TÜBİTAK, we will carry more than 100 local initiatives to a level where they can compete on a global level. The recent events in our region have reminded us of the importance of data security. We read about the security vulnerabilities caused by foreign-origin messaging applications in the newspapers. We are increasing our collaboration between BİP and our Ministry in order to strengthen our data security. We will encourage both the communication between our students and the communication between parents and teachers to be carried out through the BiP application."

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said,"While we encourage the use of technology in education, we cannot leave our children, who are the assurance of our future, to the mercy of digital overlords."

In his speech at the Turkey Educational Technologies Summit (TETZ) held by the Ministry of National Education at a hotel in Bahçelievler, President Erdoğan stated that Türkiye ranks high among OECD countries in terms of efforts to provide technological infrastructure in education.

Stating that the Education Model of the Century of Turkey, which considers not only the needs of today but also the needs of the future, will continue to raise competent, well-equipped, self-confident and virtuous youth in every field, President Erdoğan said,"We cannot deny that the increasing use of artificial intelligence in every field, as well as in education, brings with it various problems. This opportunity, which makes research, accessing and interpreting information much easier, unfortunately also encourages laziness, preparatory work and plagiarism."

President Erdoğan emphasized that research, homework, articles and theses written using artificial intelligence are becoming increasingly widespread at many levels from basic education to academia, and said,"If artificial intelligence applications are no longer a tool that reduces our workload, but rather accustom people to being put at their disposal, this will cause addiction after a while. I believe this poses a great risk for all of humanity."

Erdoğan stated that their greatest desire is for social media and digitalization to exist and add value to life without destroying tradition, values, and nature, and continued as follows:

"With the spread of digitalization at the speed of light, we, as humanity, feel ourselves faced with a digital siege. Organic relationships that can be established with nature, with nature, with the ordinary states of life are being replaced by new products and new tools of the internet and digitalization. As a result of this, digital bullying and lynching culture threatens and frightens everyone, regardless of whether they are children, young people or adults."

Erdoğan noted that aggressive behaviors such as insults, threats, slander, exclusion, and humiliation made through digital platforms seriously endanger children's mental health, and said,"Traumas, anxiety disorders, and even, God forbid, suicide cases show how digital bullying and lynching culture can turn into a scourge. Preventing digital bullying, which has become one of the greatest fears of everyone, especially our children, should also be among our priorities. While encouraging the use of technology in education, we cannot leave our children, who are the guarantee of our future, to the mercy of digital overlords."

Expressing that freedom does not mean disorder or disregard for rules, laws and values, Erdoğan emphasized that they cannot remain silent while global technology companies, social media platforms and digital platforms, whose monthly turnover exceeds the annual budgets of many states, invade every aspect of life under the pretext of freedom.

President Erdoğan said,"We cannot allow digital platforms to see our citizens, our youth, our children as market material. Like everyone else, these companies and platforms must act responsibly, not only with profit maximization but also with a sense of responsibility. As Turkey, we will continue our determined and uncompromising stance on this issue."

The TETZ 2025 opening film was shown in the program and the Cosmic Symphony Show with Mehmet Ünal was performed.

Following the speeches, Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin presented President Erdoğan with a musical instrument designed with artificial intelligence.

Protocol members and participants took photos at the end of the event.

The program was attended by ministers, deputy ministers, ambassadors, attachés and participants at various levels from Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, Georgia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, TRNC, Congo, North Macedonia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Romania, Serbia, Somalia and Tajikistan.

The summit will reportedly end on Sunday, June 22.