ISTANBUL - National Education Minister Huseyin Celik returned from Britain, where he visited as official guest of British Secretary of State for Education and Skills Charles Clarke, to Turkey on Thursday.
Celik told reporters that he held very important meetings on education in Britain.
National Education Minister Celik said that he attended a seminar on use of education and communication technologies and visited Education Technologies Fair.
Celik noted that his visit to Britain was fruitful.
He had the opportunity to see rapidly developing education technologies in the world, Celik stated.
Celik said that Turkey had started initiatives related with education technologies as of 2003.
He took up educational problems of around 300 thousand Turkish and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) citizens who were living in Britain during his meeting with his British counterpart, Celik pointed out.
Celik said, ''Britain is the country where we send the most students following the United States. When European Union (EU) member and candidate countries are paying 1,500-2,000 pounds for school as British citizens, Turkish or TRNC citizens pay 6-10 thousand pounds. This is very high. We demanded that this education fee should be reduced to a reasonable amount and Turkish students should be asked to pay the same price as other EU candidate countries. British officials said they will evaluate this issue.''
''This issue is important because some of our kinsmen living in TRNC apply for citizenship of Greek Cypriot side and take passports from this side in order not to pay this high education fee,'' Celik noted.
Celik stated that Turkey had not signed any cultural cooperation agreement with Britain since 1994, adding that Turkey and Britain agreed to convene Joint Education Commission as soon as possible.
(BRC) 08.01.2004