Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin pointed out that millions of children who are away from education due to war and conflicts cannot take part in international measurement and evaluation systems, and called for the protection of schools and teachers from being the target of war.
Tekin spoke at the "COP31 Youth and Education Day - Evidence-Based Monitoring, Experience Sharing and Cooperation in Green Education" session held at the Special Event Hall in the Blue Zone within the scope of the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Antalya.
Stating that Türkiye exceeded the OECD average of 480 points with 494 points in the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA 2025), which measures environmental science for the first time, Tekin stated that it ranked 17th among 85 countries and 12th among OECD countries.
Stating that the rate of students who want to pursue an environmentally related profession has reached 78.5 percent, Tekin noted that Türkiye is above the OECD average in the learning opportunities offered by schools on the environment, and that the results obtained are an indicator of the reflection of teachers' efforts and environmental awareness on school life.
Tekin noted that while they were completely renewing the curriculum with the Türkiye Century Education Model, they were not content with teaching value as knowledge within the framework of virtue, value and action, but also aimed for it to turn into behavior.
Explaining that students research different environmental problems every month and develop solution suggestions with the "Green Homeland - My School is a Cure for the Future" activities, Tekin stated that the Environmental Education and Climate Change course given in primary and secondary schools provides the scientific basis for these studies.
Stating that according to PISA 2025 data, participation in recycling programs in schools reached 99.2 percent, Tekin said that this rate reveals the prevalence of environmental awareness in education life.
Stating that OECD announced that it will regularly measure climate literacy in all participating countries starting from the PISA 2029 cycle, Tekin stated that Türkiye will not be satisfied with participating in the said process as a measured country, but will contribute to the discussions on how to do the measurement with its own experiences.
In this context, Tekin stated that the climate literacy subscale will be added to the Research on Monitoring and Evaluation of Academic Skills (ABİDE), which is carried out in two-year periods in the 4th, 8th and 10th grades, and noted that the data to be obtained will be reflected in the education programs.
Tekin also stated that he was selected as the co-coordinator of the Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group established within Türkiye's Green Education Partnership (GEP) for the first two-year period, together with the OECD and Global Education Monitoring Report teams, and stated that they aim to strengthen the sharing of data and good practices between countries within the scope of this task.
Tekin pointed out that a well-designed measurement makes visible the children living in areas with limited opportunities and gives the opportunity to question whether the right to education reaches everyone equally or not, and continued as follows:
"The first condition of securing the right to education for everyone is to be able to see who cannot use it. However, millions of children left unschooled by war and conflicts cannot take part in any school-based learning assessments. Children, who we do not know what they have learned or even whether they have learned, are deprived of even the data to tell their own stories.
We see that while war takes children away from their schools, it also takes them out of the world's view. I believe that a world in which no child is expelled from school or from records is possible only through peace. The responsibility of establishing peace rests on the shoulders of all of us, especially those who have the power to fulfill that responsibility.
As Türkiye, we opened our doors to millions of people fleeing war and our schools to their children. We know the weight of responsibility intimately from that experience. I hereby call on all countries to demonstrate the will to protect schools and teachers from being the target of war. "I see it as our common duty to place children left unschooled by conflicts at the center of our monitoring systems and education policies."
Minister Tekin hoped that the experiences shared in Antalya would further deepen the cooperation between the countries.
