Education Ministry

The Education Ministry said on Friday that, contrary to previous statements, it does not have plans to shut down 60 experimental and model schools across the country.

?We refute rumors that the political leadership of the Education Ministry intends to scrap experimental and model schools,? the ministry said.

The members of the board governing Greece?s 60 experimental and model schools (DEPPS) tendered their resignation Thursday after a meeting with Education Minister Aristides Baltas, who has pledged to scrap entry examinations for the institutions.

Romania needs to increase the number of people in higher education by at least 10 per cent by 2020 and stop the sharp fall in the number of people going to university, an Education Ministry paper says.

According to official data, only 465,000 students enrolled in late 2013, compared to 891,000 only four years earlier.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected Turkey's appeal to a ruling that said high school students must be allowed to opt out of religious education classes, which are currently compulsory.

By Maria Katsounaki

Why should excellence be perceived as some kind of stigma or twisted ambition?

Let?s leave aside the contradictory announcements made by the Education Ministry regarding model experimental schools and take a closer look at the meaning of certain words.

Following the government's initiative to open Turkish schools abroad, the Health Ministry is now planning to open hospitals abroad, starting with Somalia and Sudan.

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Cevdet Erdöl said during a speech at parliament that the Health Ministry was considering opening training and research hospitals abroad.

Lawmakers in the National Assembly have started discussions on a bill which could bring about changes to schooling and pre-school education.

The idea is to further divide the education system into various stages, breaking secondary education into two parts and allowing pupils to opt for either pre-university or vocational preparation.

Students opposed to a recently adopted law, which has introduced external, state-supervised exams, on Tuesday reached a "principled agreement" to start occupying college campuses.

However, students said the final decision about which educational facilities to occupy and when would be determined later on.

The Turkish president has again called on foreign countries to shut down schools operated by supporters of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a U.S.-based ally-turned-foe, saying the Turkish state would happily replace those schools.

More than 561 million copies of books were published in Turkey last year, according to a recently released report from the Turkish Publishers' Union. The figure equaled over seven books for every citizen of the country.