Say Yes, Summer 2004: In This Issue

A NEW YEAR BRINGING NEW CHALLENGES

With only a few weeks remaining of the school holidays, educators and students all over the country are preparing for the new academic year which will begin on the 13th of September.

UNICEF and the Ministry of National Education (MONE), along with our partners in the girls’ education campaign Haydi Kızlar Okula! are confident that 300,000 girls who were previously out-of-school will enroll in primary education.

This edition of Say Yes is devoted to the drive to enroll 600,000 girls who are out-of-school and achieve gender parity in primary education before the end of 2005.

Read Getting the Word Out.

TEMPORARY MEASURES

A chronic shortage of school space in Turkey presents one of the greatest obstacles to girls’ enrolment -- and education in general.

The past decade has seen massive rural to urban migration in Turkey, placing a tremendous strain on urban and metropolitan services in general. Over-crowded inner city schools often have to run classes in shifts in order to accommodate the large numbers of students on their registers.

Conversely, the more remote, de-populated rural areas tend to have little or no school space available. The traditional solution of transporting children to urban centres and boarding schools has discouraged many parents from sending their adolescent daughters to school.

So the provision of extra space in order to meet the anticipated rise in enrolment rates in September is key to the success of the girls’ education campaign in Turkey. A temporary but nonetheless effective solution is to use the pre-fabricated structures which formerly accommodated homeless families in disaster areas. In this issue, we examine the logistics and problems anticipated in putting these now empty structures to good use.

Read Instant Schoolspace.

COME ON GIRLS!

Haydi Kızlar Okula! received an extra boost at the beginning of the summer. Governors of the 33 priority provinces met in Ankara on the first day of June to make a forthright and unequivocal declaration in support of the campaign’s objectives which we have printed in this issue.

We also spoke to some of the governors about the issue of girls’ education and how it affects life in their provinces.

Read From Strength to Strength.

A CHANGE OF HEART

As Haydi Kızlar Okula! takes İstanbul under it’s wing along with another 22 new provinces targeted for increased enrolment rates in girls’ education, we meet Gazel -- who almost missed out on school but for her father’s change of heart.

As many as 75,000 girls in İstanbul are not attending school. Hopefully these girls will see similarly happy resolutions to their stories when schools open in September.

Read Haydi Haydi Gazel!

EVERY PENNY HELPS

Economic hardship is another barrier to girls’ education -- especially in the poorer rural areas and urban districts of Turkey. Many families require their children to work or stay at home to help with domestic chores.

It is an all too familiar story around the world -- especially to advocates of girls’ education since the schooling of daughters is usually the first thing to be sacrificed by families in straitened circumstances.

The Social Solidarity and Assistance Fund (SYDTF) has adopted measures to counteract the problem and ease pressure on parents who would otherwise gladly send their daughters to school. The financial subsidy (conditional on a child’s continued attendance and successful grades) will be 20% and 40% respectively higher for girls than boys in primary and secondary education.

Read A Helping Hand.