Ankara

According to information obtained by AA reporter, within the scope of the Zero Waste Project carried out under the auspices of First Lady Emine Erdoğan, the Ministry of Education is supporting the ongoing nationwide campaign with initiatives like recycling bins in schools and student training programs. This approach is also reflected in the distribution of free textbooks.

The Ministry of Education sent a letter to all provincial national education directorates outlining the distribution principles for the free textbooks that will be provided to students attending public and private pre-primary, primary, secondary, and high schools affiliated with the Ministry during the 2019-2020 academic year. 

The letter stated that no plastic bags would be sent for the distribution of the free textbooks.

Books to be Published in Electronic Format

Additionally, the letter detailed the procedures for making the textbooks available to students and teachers. Accordingly, in package books, students will receive lesson and student workbooks, while teachers will be provided with the lesson book, student workbook, and teacher guidebook together.

The Ministry shared the list of books to be published electronically for the 2019-2020 academic year, stating that the contents of these books would be made available in PDF format at "http://www.eba.gov.tr/ekitap".

For visually impaired students, the contents of the books listed on the site will be loaded onto tablets by provincial and district national education directorates and delivered to students. Books and lesson notes for open middle schools, open high schools, vocational open high schools, and adult education will be collected by the directorates of public education centers and distributed.

Approximately 147 Million Free Books to Be Distributed

As part of the free textbook project implemented by the Ministry since 2003, requests for books from schools for the 2019-2020 academic year were collected. In this context, printing has started for the 146 million 845 thousand 100 books that were requested.

As of July 8, the printing of the completed textbooks will begin to be sent to provincial and district national education directorates. By August 26, all 146 million 845 thousand 100 textbooks will be in the warehouses of provincial and district national education directorates.

On September 9, when schools open, textbooks will be ready for the desks of 18 million students in formal education.

Work to Be Conducted Without Working Hours

To ensure that the textbooks are made available to students and teachers on the day schools begin education, the necessary work and processes will continue without regard to working hours, including Saturdays and Sundays. However, necessary measures will be taken by relevant unit managers to ensure that the receiving processes occur between 07:00 and 21:00.

The warehouses where the received books are stored will be prepared by the latest July 8, with all security measures in place. The security of the warehouses will be communicated to the police departments.

The receipt, examination, and acceptance of books by provincial and district national education directorates, as well as the classification of textbooks in warehouses according to the distribution plan and their transportation to all schools listed in the distribution plan, will be monitored by educational inspectors.