Government plans to boost use of IT technololgy in classrooms

Most of these projects commenced under former Education Minister Hüseyin Çelik. By the time he was replaced by Nimet Çubukçu, his successor, every student in Turkey had been introduced to computers, the Internet and the cyber world.

Most of these government-supported information technology classrooms were funded by beneficent businessmen. The projects run by former Education Minister Çelik created excitement in Turkey.

The Movement to Increase Opportunities and Technology (FATİH), a Turkish education project that is often referred to as revolutionary, is set to be put out to tender in the near future and is planned to be implemented within the next five years. FATİH was first introduced at an inauguration ceremony with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan present last November.

According to information given to Sunday’s Zaman by Deputy General Director Tunay Alkan, who is in charge of the project at the General Directorate of Educational Technologies operating under the Ministry of Education, the FATİH project has various components, with the hardware and software components the most advertised in the media.

The giant project is expected to cost up to TL 2.5 billion and will be in use in 570,000 classrooms in 40,000 schools around Turkey. Such funding, which will be met through the Transportation Ministry’s “Universal Service Budget,” is the biggest resource allocation in the education field in the history of modern Turkey. The smart interactive board, network-connected multi-functional printers, document and microscope cameras and notebooks for each classroom are the focal points of the project. The educational content of the project has already been donated by seven content firms in Turkey. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education has its own content development center that will also feed the system. In addition, teachers will be able to instantly access any document around the world they need for the class, reflecting it on the smart interactive board.

The panel type, interactive smart board, was developed by the General Directorate of Educational Technologies, which is, according to Alkan, the most technologically advanced of its kind in the world. These LCD-type high-quality HD picture screens can be written on with conventional markers and have touch screen options. Any animation, movie and picture can be displayed on the high resolution screen. The document and microscope cameras will allow any documents, pages or real objects related to the class content to be displayed on the smart board during class. As part of the project, each of the approximately 630,000 teachers will receive laptops.

In the second component of the project there will be 110 in-service training centers connected to each other through a network that covers Turkey’s 81 provinces for educator training purposes, where all the participants will able to interact with each other live through teleconferencing. The last component, for such a giant project, is to establish a secure and appropriate network infrastructure for all the schools across the country, Alkan emphasizes. “The implicit aim of this project is also to provide a productive habit of technology and Internet usage for the students where they will also learn how to protect themselves from the dangers of the cyber world since they are the future of this country,” Alkan told Sunday’s Zaman

“It could be challenging to implement such a giant project in the beginning, and it could be expensive; yet, with time, as the sectors in this field and the respective government officials gain expertise, everything will be a lot easier and cheaper. This is a digital and educational revolution for Turkey as it will enable us to close the technological gap with developed countries and maybe advance us further,” Alkan added.

According to Alkan, with such a technological infrastructure set up in schools in Turkey, the early earthquake warning systems will be able to be implemented in the near future, where the students will be able to see the warning on the screens minutes prior to an earthquake, similar to the system used in Japan. “Such cyber infrastructure will also enable the country to utilize the technology for the benefit of our society in other fields. For example in the near future, Turkey could be able to conduct computer-based elections and receive the results within seconds after the official closing time,” Alkan said.