(Bloomberg) -- The Turkish education minister was removed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after criticism that his pandemic remote learning policy excluded children without the technological means to participate.
Ziya Selcuk “requested to be relieved from duty” and his request was accepted, according to Erdogan's decree published in the official gazette at about 1:30 a.m. local time on Friday.
No reason was given for why Selcuk wanted to leave. He had been under fire from teachers unions and parents for shutting down schools during the pandemic and from opposition parties who said hundreds of thousands of students, especially in rural provinces, were unable to attend classes for months mainly due to technological limitations including a lack of televisions and tablets.
Teacher unions have been demanding that schools open with health precautions in September this year even as coronavirus cases rise.
Selcuk's deputy, Mahmut Ozer, was appointed as the new minister. Ozer is a former university rector who had been deputy minister since 2018, Hurriyet newspaper reported.
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