VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS IN TURKEY WILL PRODUCE MASKS AND DISINFECTANTS

The Ministry of National Education (MEB) continues to increase the capacity and diversity of production initiated in vocational high schools as part of new types of coronavirus measures. MEB focuses on the production of protective products such as cleaning materials, disinfectants, surgical masks and disposable gowns and overalls. On the one hand, vocational high schools trying to meet the needs of the market reliably, on the other hand, launched a new social service project.
MEB General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education reassessed and expanded the scope of «Vocational High School Students Meet Our Families» project, which has been carried out by students and teachers of vocational and technical secondary education institutions for years. Accordingly, it was decided to provide cleaning and disinfectant materials and surgical masks produced in vocational high schools free of charge to elderly and needy families.
Deputy Ministry of National Education Mahmut Özer said, “Within the scope of «Vocational High School Students Meet Our Families» project, there were 889 schools in 81 provinces in the 2018-2019 academic year. «In these schools, 13 thousand 217 teachers and 39 thousand 197 students participated in the project and supported 54 thousand families.»
Science and Art Centers (BİLSEM) also started to produce face shields for healthcare workers after the vocational high schools announced that they started to produce disinfectants, masks, disposable gowns and overalls due to the coronavirus outbreak. According to the news on the website of the Ministry of Education; Upon the difficulties in the production of face protective shields, face protecting shield prototypes were produced with 3-D printers at BİLSEMs. It was stated that in this production process, 1 face shield can be produced in about 2 hours. With the 3D printers in 150 BİLSEM, it is aimed to produce 30 thousand face protective shields per month with daily thousand face protective shield production. In addition, R & D studies are also carried out on the transformation of the acetate part placed on the plastic body into a plug-and-play shape, and thus the longer life of the shield.
After the coronavirus detected in Turkey, MEB selected 14 pilot provinces for the production of both the N95 standard mask, as well as simple surgical masks. N95 standard mask production started to be produced in Mersin, Ankara, Tekirdağ and Antep after Istanbul, Bursa and Hatay.
In addition, surgical masks were planned in 30 schools in 14 provinces. Upon request, each of the vocational high schools from Bartın, Denizli, Kayseri, Manisa, Mersin, Muğla, Tekirdağ were included in the pilot province in the production of surgical masks.