The capture of Abdullah "Apo" Ocalan will result in further decreases in the terror campaign which PKK has been loosing especially during the last 2 years.

As a result of decreasing terrorism the government has re-started the school building agenda it had to suspend due to PKK attacks. The south eastern part of Turkey was already under developed while Turkey entered its major economic and industrial boom period of the 80s. When terror begun in mid 1980s it really didn't help the region get anymore ahead as described in other documents.

With the capture of Ocalan a new set of initiatives are being planned to pump up the regions educational resources. As outlined by the Minister of Education Metin Bostanciloglu on 21/2/99 a set of projects have been drawn up to start up as soon as possible in addition to the projects started in 1997 which are all ready underway..

A total of 14,739 grade, 6,568 specialized teachers have been assigned to the regions since the second half of 1997. In the same time period a total of 7,274 military teachers were assigned to the various regions which were more close to the battle zone whose main task was to provide at least the basic elementary school functions. In addition to these a total of 2,721 support staff were assigned to the various schools in the region.

There are still close 654 school officially closed due to security reasons but most of these regions have been vacated by villagers moving away from the terror zones to the west, or into larger towns and villages. As a result most of these students have been accommodated at other schools. However this accommodation has been far from perfect barely being able to support the increased student load.

As a partial solution the ministry has planned/commissioned 53 boarding schools which will allow students to stay over instead of travelling the large distances which sometimes are required to reach a school from individual villages/hamlets. These will give a chance to get an education for close to 20,000 students.

In addition another 107 elementary and 57+29 (elementary+middle) boarding schools are being planned for construction in 2000. This will bring an additional capacity of 71,720 positions of which 34,680 will include full boarding services which will be on government scholarships. Class text books will be distributed free of charge to all needy students by the government.

To relieve the load on the already heavily strained schools additional investments for things such as libraries, technical-skill/computer laboratories and sports facilities are planned.

These centers will also work after typical school hours with the aims of providing a chance for the parents of these students to better educate themselves. They will have a chance to finish their education and or add various skills which will be helpful in their daily rural life.

Some Tidbits of Information
• There are a total 55,013 teachers posted to the 12,833 elementary schools in the region.
• According to the Ministry of Education there are a total of 1,943,779 students in elementary schools in the south and southeastern parts of Anatolia.
• Male to female ratio is roughly the same.
• There are 16,508 teachers posted to 800 high schools.
• 407 of these schools are special vocational schools aimed at educating students for immediately employable skills needed in the region.
• A total of 251,310 students are attending high school.
• As a result of the special conditions of the region, of the total 214 elementary boarding schools in all of Turkey 121 are in this region.
• A total 1,326 special schools are in operation to teach basic literacy to the regions adult population. Approximately 32000 people are continuing these course of which close to 24000 are women.
• There are various other apprentice programs which allow up to 90,000 new opportunities to learn new trades and improve oneself.

Most of these numbers, opportunities for self-improvement have only recently become available due to terrorist attacks against schools/educators but also due to parents worrying about sending their children long distances in such an environment where PKK does not refrain from killing innocent civilians.