The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş directly affected 11 provinces, thousands of buildings were destroyed, and hundreds of structures were severely damaged. While education is one of the areas most affected by earthquakes, schools in Kahramanmaraş are being prepared for education one by one before the 2023-2024 academic year.
While 19 schools providing education in the city were demolished before the earthquake, 12 schools were reported to be destroyed immediately, 64 schools were heavily damaged, 72 schools were moderately damaged, 426 schools were slightly damaged and 395 schools were undamaged.
Kahramanmaraş National Education Director Yunus Kahraman announced that education will start with 900 schools in Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the earthquake. Stating that the schools in the city served 45 thousand citizens in the earthquake, Kahraman said, “Since the first moment of the earthquake, our schools have been with our citizens who were affected by the earthquake. It served our citizens with its accommodation, food services and cleaning shower dimensions. In this sense, 45 thousand of our citizens benefited from our schools.” said.
“We will start education with 900 schools”
Stating that 821 schools, which were reported as slightly damaged and undamaged, were made ready for education by making renovations, maintenance and repairs, Kahraman said;
We have renovated and maintained 821 schools, including the whitewashing of the undamaged ones and the renovations of the damaged ones. In addition to these 821 schools, we have newly built schools that will catch up with the opening of the schools on September 11. Together with this, we will start educational activities together in at least 900 of our schools. Except for our container schools established in container cities. If there is no earthquake with them, we will be able to catch up with whatever our previous issue was. We were matched with the educational environments in our schools so that none of our students were left out. In addition, within the framework of the assignment of 45 thousand teachers by our Ministry, 839 of our teachers made a serious contribution to the earthquake process by jumping to our hero city. With a new enthusiasm, God willing, we will start education with all our students on September 11.