Education
Turkey among top countries with most number of international schools in the Middle East
The latest ISC Research data on the global movement of English-medium international schools, released ahead of the inaugural GESS Turkey education exhibition and conference in Istanbul, show that the country is fourth in Western Asia/Middle East with the most number of premium, English-medium…
Turkey’s emergence as a global education hub has cascaded from universities to schools.
In the last few years, Turkey has pro-actively promoted its colleges and universities as an affordable, yet quality alternative for international students. It now appears it is also making significant progress in attracting international school owners and operators to expand to the country.
The latest ISC Research data on the global movement of English-medium international schools, released ahead of the inaugural GESS Turkey education exhibition and conference in Istanbul, show that the country is fourth in Western Asia/Middle East with the most number of premium, English-medium international schools with 114, just behind the UAE’s 601, Saudi Arabia’s 244 and Qatar’s 165. The other countries witnessing a thriving international schools sector include Kuwait (87), Bahrain (58), Jordan (50), Lebanon (44) and Cyprus (40). Over half of international schools in Turkey (68) are currently operating out of Istanbul.
“Turkey has done a great job promoting itself as an education hub at the tertiary level, offering competitive costs and reasonably improving academic standards. At the primary and secondary school levels, its growing appeal among international school operators is only beginning to emerge but will hopefully lead to more progress in its education sector over the long-term,” said Matt Thompson, Director, F&E Education, organisers of GESS Turkey, scheduled on 19-21 October 2017 at the Wow Istanbul Convention Centre.
Thompson says the growth and internationalisation of Turkey’s private education sector will create gaps that need to be filled – from teacher training to curriculum development as well as facilities upgrade and adoption of the latest digital learning tools – which will be key of focus of GESS Turkey, making it a must-attend event for key stakeholders and decision-makers as well as education professionals.
“The show’s dynamic combination of a conference programme and an exhibition provide key education stakeholders and professionals an opportunity to learn from local and international experts on the latest trends on improving the teaching and learning experience through a wide range of workshops and panel sessions focusing on neuroscience, innovation, future learning as well as best practice presentations by noted educators,” added Thompson.
Experts from the Microsoft Teacher Academy, Vex Robotics, Lego and Google Educators will lead some of the training workshops aimed at sharpening the digital skills and capabilities of teachers and helping them harness a variety of technological tools to make learning in classrooms more fun, engaging and effective.
Meanwhile, the exhibition promises an exceptional showcase of education-focused brands from local and international companies eyeing a share of the growing education market in Turkey, providing decision makers from Turkish schools a convenient and strategic platform to explore a wide variety of options for selecting potential upgrades or acquisition of new learning tools, teaching aids and facility enhancements.
Registration is still ongoing. The event is free-to-attend and those interested to register may do so online at www.gess-turkey.com.