Koç Holding Started “MLMM 4.0” Move with Tüpraş

Tüpraş built “Robotic Coding, 3D Modeling, Production Skill” classrooms in 30 secondary education schools in 4 cities in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education.  Levent Çakıroğlu, CEO of Koç Holding, who joined the opening ceremony of laboratory in Kocaeli Şehit Alper Al Secondary School, said: “Tüpraş assists secondary school students in meeting with the skills of 21st century with these laboratories. It helps students, who can think innovative, adapt to rapidly changing world, in gaining competence in coding, the language of future. As Koç Group, when we initiated ‘Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter for the Nation’ project in 2006, we shouldered the responsibility for growing qualified workforce, which was highly needed by our country. At this point, we are now at the stage of ‘Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter for the Nation’ in Industry 4.0 age, as a result of our experiences in vocational training. After 14 years, we signed a new protocol by collaborating with our Ministry of National Education and IBM and we implemented ‘The Project for Development of 21st Century Skills in National Education’. Equipping our youngsters with the skills of 21st century during their school days would, no doubt, will be one of the most important competitive advantages for our future.” İbrahim Yelmenoğlu, General Manager of Tüpraş, said, “We wanted to touch the lives of our children by investing in their education and provide opportunities to them to develop themselves by increasing their capabilities to access technology. Our main motivation is to lead in growing productive generations that can adapt to the changing world and to be a good model for them in this journey. Fortunately, today, we are at a position that we altogether dreamed for.”
 
The opening ceremony of “Robotic Coding, 3D Modeling, Production Skill“ classrooms, built by Tüpraş in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education in 30 secondary schools of 4 cities, in which Tüpraş has refineries, was held in Kocaeli Şehit Alper Al Secondary School with the participation of Hüseyin Aksoy, Governor of Kocaeli; Dr. Cem Gençoğlu, Primary Education General Manager of the Ministry of National Education; Levent Çakıroğlu, Koç Holding CEO; Yağız Eyüboğlu, President of Energy Group of Koç Holding; and Oya Ünlü Kızıl, External Relations and Corporate Communication Director of Koç Holding and the event was hosted by İbrahim Yelmenoğlu, General Manager of Tüpraş.
 
The classes that aim children to meet with science, technology and innovation in their early ages and to make contributions to the development of their design skills were prepared for education of Classes 7 and 8 of 30 secondary schools in Batman, Kırıkkale, İzmir and İzmit, where the refineries of Tüpraş are located. Totally 12 thousand students were reached until today since 2019 - 2020 academic year, at the first year of education in these classes. 80 teachers took intensive professional development trainings and were supported to be certified trainers as a part of the project. Project content was set to be in compliance with the curriculum of “Technology and Design” courses of the Ministry of National Education and students and teachers were allowed to implement current curriculum easily thanks to technical equipment available in classrooms. Consumable requirements of these classrooms were completely supplied by Tüpraş and a study kit, supporting 3D modeling, robotic content and other educational contents were prepared specifically for the project.
 
Levent Çakıroğlu: “Fourth Industrial Revolution is an important opportunity”
 
Levent Çakıroğlu, CEO of Koç Holding, highlighted the great transformation initiated by the Fourth Industrial Revolution in his speech during the opening ceremony and added, “Similar to previous industrial revolutions, there are both opportunities and threats. I believe there is an important opportunity window. If correct preparations are made on time and necessary investments are made, particularly for our human resources, it will be possible to increase the competitiveness of both our companies and our country. For this reason, preparation of our children and youngsters for business life with the skills and competences needed for our age is vital. We believe collaboration between public and private sectors is essential in this issue, which is actually one of the most important agenda items of the entire world. We discuss these issues with leading executives, academicians, non-governmental organization and public representatives throughout the world in many international platforms. It is agreed that, in addition to providing new competences to current workforce, restructuring educational curriculum and techniques in accordance with the requirements of our time and benefiting from technology in education are also very important.”
 
Levent Çakıroğlu: “We work to put forward an innovative school-industry collaboration model to ensure Industry 4.0 transformation, which will set an example in future.”
 
“All data point out an education system based on the skills of 21st century” said Levent Çakıroğlu and referred to ‘Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter for the Nation’ project, which was initiated by Koç Group in 2006 and which has become a significant milestone for the development of vocational education in our country and added: “As Koç Group, when we initiated ‘Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter for the Nation’ project in 2006, we shouldered the responsibility for growing qualified workforce, which was highly needed by our country. We mobilized the resources of our Group according to the needs and after 14 years, we signed a new protocol by collaborating with our Ministry of National Education and IBM and so, we implemented ‘The Project for Development of 21st Century Skills in National Education’. This collaboration aims to improve behavioral and technical skills of students and teachers. We work to put forward an innovative school-industry collaboration model in vocational and technical high schools in order to ensure Industry 4.0 transformation, which will set a model in future. This model is based on joint education, thinking and production of students, teachers and industrial representatives. Thanks to the experiences we gained in the first year of this project, we contributed to the studies to renew ‘vocational development course’, attended by 450 thousand students and implemented by 54 thousand teachers in Turkey, in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education. Simultaneously, we designed a sample workshop to improve design skill workshop standards in vocational education and we initiated the efforts to implement them. At this point, we are now at the stage of ‘Vocational Education: A Crucial Matter for the Nation’ in Industry 4.0 age, as a result of our experiences in vocational training. Our young population is the most important power of our country. Equipping them with the skills of 21st century during their school days would, no doubt, will be one of the most important competitive advantages for our future.”
 
Highlighting information and technology based change, which has accelerated over the last years, Hüseyin Aksoy, Governor of Kocaeli, said: “We are now opening a robotic workshop that will create an opportunity for our young people, to whom we entrusted our future, to be developed in the best manner. We pay a great attention to vocational education in order to adopt the change. As Koç Holding said, vocational education is a crucial matter for the Nation. This project is very important to create awareness. We provide the areas needed by a vocational high school and we educate our youngsters. Our intention is to improve industry - school collaboration more. Robotic coding classes, which opened today, are very important to open up our students’ horizon and to help them realizing their imaginations. I would like to thank Tüpraş for their awareness regarding education and I would like to thank Koç Holding for their approach that see vocational schools as a matter of our country.”
 
Dr. Cem Gençoğlu, General Manager of Basic Education of the Ministry of National Education, says “It is very meaningful to be in a school, in an industrial city and together with the leading industrial corporations our country in this industrial city. Our schools are also not independent from our country’s gross national product, our industrial investments and innovation. When we talk about education, we mean organizations that are built around innovative and creating thinking, much beyond the organization of teaching. Our main purpose is to increase the number of design skill schools even in the most remote cities of our country. These design schools are the investments that the students would think “made just for me”. For this reason, I would like to thank the representatives of Tüpraş and Koç Holding and to those who have made a contribution to this project.”
 
The purpose is to contribute to the students in becoming ready for the competencies of 21st  century
 
İbrahim Yelmenoğlu, General Manager of Tüpraş, who provided information about the project in his speech, told: “We set off this journey with a dream. We desired to leave permanent structures to our country and community with our responsibility of being a corporate citizen.
 
We wanted to touch the lives of our children, who will shape our future, and provide opportunities to them to develop themselves by increasing their capabilities to access technology, by investing in their education. We aimed to contribute to them in becoming ready for the competencies of 21st century.
 
We particularly focused to create a social and permanent added value in the cities, in which we have refineries. Our main motivation is to lead in growing productive generations that can adapt to the changing world and to be a good model for them in this journey. Fortunately, today, we are at a position that we altogether dreamed for.
 
The project will also continue in the new academic year.
 
Stating that they measure concrete results of this project for students, teachers and the society by receiving the support of academic advisors, Yelmenoğlu shared these results, too: “One of the most prominent achievements of our project was the determination and will of our students in attending classes. We saw that even the students, who showed little interest to courses, are more willing and impatient to attend these classes. We observed that the energy of our kids to be a member of a questioning generation and their efforts to bring a new perspective has increased, and they pay more attention on details and they are more active. We also saw that negative behaviors of our students were decreased and their self-confidence has grown in almost all our schools. We were also proud of the decision of one of our students, who was the top student of the school, to be a technology design teacher; the decision of another student to continue on his education in Science Technical School after attending our project, and the invitation sent from a university to one of our students to present his project to university students. Similarly, preparation of a TÜBİTAK project by one of our special education students, who receive education at home, with the help of these classes, is only one of several concrete results showing that our project has started to touch students. These important results that we achieved in a very short period gave us hope. The enthusiasm of our teachers, the light that we see in the eyes of our students have strengthened our belief that we are on the right path. We continue on our project also in the new academic year in order to reach more of our children.”