President Erdoğan announces appointment of 45,000 teachers ahead of elections

Duvar English

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on March 20 that 45,000 new teachers will be appointed. Erdoğan said the teachers will be appointed to especially earthquake-stricken provinces.

“My dear citizens, dear members of our education community, I would like to share some good news with you. We will appoint 45,000 new teachers to improve the quality of our education system and further strengthen our education staff. We will assign our teachers primarily in disaster areas to heal the wounds of the earthquake. Congratulations to all our teachers, their families, students and our education community,” Erdoğan stated on Twitter.

Thanking Erdoğan, Turkish Education Minister Mahmut Özer said “We will announce the appointment calendar and distribution as soon as possible.”

The move came when there was less than two months to the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections which are scheduled for the date of May 14.

Turkey’s southeastern region was struck by two major earthquakes on Feb. 6, one at a magnitude of 7.7 and the other at 7.6. The first one’s epicenter was Kahramanmaraş’s Pazarcık district, whereas the second one was the Elbistan district.

Moreover, 6.4, 5.8, 5.2, 5.2 magnitudes of earthquakes hit southern Hatay on Feb. 20, increasing the extent of damage.

According to the official figures as of March 20, the number of citizens who have died in the earthquakes stands at 50,096, but experts fear that the number is much higher, taking into consideration the thousands of buildings that collapsed.

Over 200,000 buildings are reported to have collapsed or severely damaged as a result of the quakes.