ANKARA
The Institute which currently has 30 centres in foreign countries, aims to open up ten new cultural centres every year. The Institute also supports countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tunisia and Georgia that would like integrate Turkish language into their educational system.
The Institute was formed in 2009 for the purpose of promoting Turkish language, culture, history and art to the world. Turkish President Abdullah Gul is the Honorary President and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is President of Board of Trustees.
President of Yunus Emre Institute Prof. Dr. Ali Fuat Bilkan said that the activities of such institutes are mainly based on language teaching and promoting of language. He also mentioned Yunus Emre Institute was the Turkish version of Britain's British Council and Germany's Goethe Institute.
Yunus Emre Institute's 2013 target is to establish ten cultural centres in Africa. A new cultural centre was just opened in Cairo and talks are continuing for centres in South Africa, Sudan, Yemen and some other countries in Central Africa.
Bilkan also said that the highest number of students receiving Turkish language course was in Bosnia Herzegovina and added, "We prepared a special programme for Bosnia. We published Turkish school books. Turkish will be an elective in high schools as well as primary schools."
The Institute also initiated the "Turkish Proficiency Exam" prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Education for those who would like to prove that they have learnt Turkish and started conducting the exams electronically.
Reporting by Ali Ozturk
