“MÜSİAD Education Achievement Award Ceremony”
13 June 2019
Karadeniz Ereğli
Honourable Governor, Honourable Mayor,
Esteemed Presidents and Representatives of the Business World and of NGOs,
Esteemed MÜSİAD Members and Friends,
Esteemed Members of the Press,
At our “MÜSİAD Education Achievement Award Ceremony” programme held by MÜSİAD Karadeniz Ereğli, I greet you all with respect; welcome, you have honoured us with your presence.
Distinguished Guests,
Awards are gifts of encouragement offered to us so that we may attain success or focus more closely upon success.
Each of us attains reward to the extent that we reach the goals we have set for ourselves, whether in our working lives or in our private lives.
It is important to encourage and to persuade our spirit and our mind so that we may advance towards new successes.
When an award is given by others, however, you forget all the difficulties you have encountered along the way and you see that the intense efforts you have made have found a response, that you have been understood, and you are made happy.
The happiness a person experiences upon seeing that his efforts have found a response is more valuable than all else.
Distinguished Guests,
In this sense, our MÜSİAD Karadeniz Ereğli branch is undertaking a valuable event. With the Achievement in Education Awards it enables our hardworking and successful students who pursue their education in this city to look to the future with greater self-confidence, by rewarding them.
Today, within the scope of the Education Achievement Award Ceremony, which we are holding for the 23rd time, we shall reward, for the successes they have attained, our 90 students who ranked highest in a total of 30 high schools and equivalent institutions, together with the students and teachers who represented our region in national competitions and achieved rankings across Türkiye.
I congratulate in advance our young children who receive awards and wish that their successes may be lasting. We want these awards to be an encouragement for the great future successes of our hardworking and determined young people.
If we can touch their lives and make even a small contribution, how happy we shall be.
On this occasion I thank from the bottom of my heart our Karadeniz Ereğli Branch, which has rewarded the success of 1652 students over a period of 23 years, close to a quarter of a century, together with the mothers and fathers of our students and our veteran teachers.
Dear Young People;
You are the generations who will build the future of our Türkiye and who will restore our country and our nation to their glorious days in history.
In the very near future you will sit in the seats in which we now sit, and you will carry the flag you take over from us to far better places.
“You will be the new representatives of politics, of the bureaucracy, of academia, of the business world and of the culture, sports and arts community. You will be in pursuit of knowledge, of learning and of holding a stance in the face of life.
All the knowledge you have accumulated, all the experience life will grant you and all the titles and offices that will be entrusted to you, you will use
in the service of your homeland for the benefit of your nation and your state, and you will work with all your might so that your country may always attain what is better.
But your cause must always be your homeland!”
Esteemed Young People,
As the children of a valuable nation that has worked for the benefit of all humanity across 3 continents for centuries, that has always stood beside the oppressed and that has taken its place in golden letters on the dusty pages of history, never forget this: these lands left to each of us an ancient civilization as a powerful inheritance.
All our efforts are so that you may build a life in which you place virtue and good morals at the centre. You are our future; always use your bright minds and your beautiful hearts to attain what is good and what is right. Never depart from the ancient friendship, brotherhood and belief in peace that these lands have bestowed upon us.
Uphold the values you believe in; build your entire life upon these values. There will arise before you people and events that wish to wear you down, to obstruct you, to shake your faith;
learn something from them too, call it “experience” and put it in your pocket, and continue on your way without ever faltering.
On the journey of achieving high and sustainable growth, on our horizon of human development, in our goal of rising to a higher tier in technology, we desire to revive the inheritance our ancient civilization left to us by taking an active role together with you, our Young People.
In the eyes of you, my young brothers and sisters standing before me, I clearly see, praise be to God, the will, the strength and the passion for action required for these great ideals to be realized. As the young people of a country that is open to the world and confident of itself and of its potential, opened to the world with its horizon and its enthusiasm, you will be in continuous development.
In the work we do we shall always aim for the best and the most ambitious. We shall never think only locally; while remaining domestic and national we shall possess an international perspective. On the one hand, while being the locomotive of the development of our country, on the other hand we shall develop a brand-new ecosystem together with the near and distant geographies of the heart that have pinned their hopes upon us.
With the inspiration we draw from our Holy Book, the Qur'an, you will strive continuously, you will set about another task as soon as you have fulfilled one properly, working hard, without losing your determination and your faith,
and, most importantly, without departing from your values, you will walk steadfastly upon the path you have drawn.
By upholding your nation, your flag and your state, you will be the architects of our country's walking into the future in tranquillity and in peace.
Distinguished Guests,
As MÜSİAD we have defended vocational education since the day we were founded. We voice it at every opportunity: vocational education and specialization are very important for the future of Türkiye.
Within this scope, by organizing the Vocational Education Workshop for the first time in Türkiye in February 2011, we assessed the problems and the solutions of “vocational education” and shared the outputs obtained with all stakeholders.
In addition to this, taking another concrete step, in 2017 we brought the MÜSİAD Bağlarbaşı Marketing and Retail Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School to our country in İstanbul.
Likewise, this past February we held the opening of the Furniture and Design Department of the Atalar Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in the district of Kartal, within the scope of the “patron school” project.
We also carry out cooperation activities in the field of education with the leading institutions and organizations of our state. In this context we signed a “Cooperation Protocol” with the Türkiye Maarif Foundation for the purpose of carrying out national and international projects together with social and cultural activities, of supporting educational and commercial work, and of sharing experience and knowledge.
Furthermore, we concluded a cooperation agreement with the Foundation for Research on Islamic History of Science (İBTAV) and Kırıkkale University in order to promote at national and international level Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, who played a great role in making the History of Islamic Science known throughout the world, and his works.
Dear Young People,
Today the world is passing through a process of transformation and change that is rapid in a manner unprecedented in history.
The winds of change are blowing extremely strongly all over the world. Undoubtedly, those who can keep pace with this change will be able to have a say in the years ahead. Adapting to this process, however, requires focusing especially on two matters: vocational expertise and innovative thinking, that is, innovation.
The developments that have taken place in the fields of communication and transport, particularly in the last two centuries, have led to the intensification of the competitive environment on a global scale. Therefore, whatever product you develop, whatever product you produce, if you cannot put forth a difference, it does not appear possible for you to succeed in the long term.
In order for us to succeed and to walk into the future with sure steps, we shall develop innovative products and, producing them with our own capital and our own human resources, we shall sell them to the world, so that we may develop not only at the economic level but in social and communal spheres as well.
For this, together with our state and our private enterprises, we must turn towards the fields of education, science and technology, increase our investments and rise as soon as possible from the position of a consuming country to the position of a producing country.
The path to Türkiye's having a say in the future and to reaching the 2023 and 2071 targets runs precisely from here.
On this occasion I would like to express that I find very valuable the steps taken by our government in this field in recent years, the support of our state and the efforts of the private sector.
Distinguished Guests,
Before concluding my remarks, I wish that the 2018 - 2019 academic year, which will come to an end tomorrow, may be auspicious for all our students.
Each one of our children, as the scientists, business people, politicians and academics of the future, is a treasure that we possess. To uphold this precious treasure that will carry us into the future is among our fundamental duties.
With these feelings I thank everyone who has laboured for and contributed to this valuable organization, above all my MÜSİAD Karadeniz Ereğli Branch President, and greet you with respect and affection.
Abdurrahman Kaan
President of MÜSİAD