Education behind Turkey's democracy, progress: Yildirim

By Sinan Uslu

ANKARA

Of the government’s main areas for Turkey’s development, perhaps the most important is education, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday.

“Without good education, there will be no development, no improvement. Education underlies democracy, development and urbanization,” Yildirim told a program in the capital Ankara organized by the National Education Ministry for 824 post-graduate scholarship students set to study abroad.

"Our government shrinks from no sacrifice in order to educate our young people. Currently, we have more than 3,000 scholarship students in 49 different countries, from the United States to China," he said.

Yildirim said this year the government allocated 134 billion Turkish lira ($34 billion) for education.

"Turkey has 186 universities now, up from 76 in 2002. That’s our difference. We're the world’s number two country in access to universities. Most of that happened over last 12 years,” he added.