Turkish Olympiads

Hasan Celal Güzel, Sabah Daily

I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has organized and supported the Turkish Olympiads.

The first Turkish Olympiads were launched in 2003 with the participation of 62 students from 17 countries. The 11th Turkish Olympiads has been attended by 2,000 students from 140 countries. Today, there are more than 1,100 Turkish educational institutions in 152 countries. There are around 20,000 teachers and 500,000 students in those educational institutions, where the language taught in is Turkish. So far, at least 300,000 people have learned Turkish with the help of those institutions. This great cultural movement is because of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Thanks to him, Turkish flags flap in all parts of the world, even in countries where there is no government official who represents our country. The slogan of this year's Turkish Olympiads, “The language of love is Turkish,” is a true statement.

Published on Sunday's Zaman, 09 June 2013, Sunday