A colorful touch from the school principal in a village school in Diyarbakır

Resul Üstüntaş, who was appointed as the principal in the village school in the Eğil district of Diyarbakır, saw that the physical conditions of the school were inadequate and improved the quality of education for students by making colorful touches on the interior and exterior walls as well as the schoolyard. Six years ago, Resul Üstüntaş was appointed as the principal of Bahşiler TYSD Atatürk Primary School in the rural Bahşiler neighborhood of Eğil district, where he reevaluated the physical conditions of the school, drew motifs on the walls, and greened the schoolyard. Within the framework of the project he initiated to leave a positive impact, Üstüntaş introduced students to activities such as theater, cinema, and concerts. Completely transforming the school, Üstüntaş aims to provide students with an educational environment beyond their dreams, resembling a college, and works to offer the best educational atmosphere. Stating that they created separate play areas in every corner of the school, Üstüntaş said, ‘When I started as the school principal in this school in 2019, the physical conditions of the school, the village community’s perspective on the school, and the students’ attitudes towards the school were not at the desired level. Firstly, we took steps to improve the physical conditions. We laid cobblestones in the soil yard. We painted the classrooms and all the interior and exterior walls of the school, decorating the exterior walls with Alaçatı motifs. In our outer courtyard, we created separate play areas in every corner for students to play during breaks.’ Üstüntaş added, ‘We are trying to turn our school into a living center for our students. With activities such as cinema, theater, concerts, we aim for the students to have fun. We developed our students’ living center with an open-air classroom, multi-purpose libraries with over 2,000 books and many educational games, in order not to confine learning to academic success under one roof. By increasing the quality of education in our school, we also prevented educational migrations.’