The “Kindergarten in My Yard” project, carried out by Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality in cooperation with the Governorship of Gaziantep and the Provincial Directorate of National Education, brings official public preschool classes inside apartment complexes and introduces a model rarely seen in Türkiye.
The main aim is to ensure that children living in densely populated housing estates can access preschool education without leaving their residential site and to increase the city’s preschool enrollment rate. The project is based on transforming suitable areas in the site yard into classrooms in line with the Ministry of National Education’s preschool regulations.
The model works through a three-pillar public partnership. Residents and the site management identify a suitable indoor space in the yard or common area. Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality then renovates this area, installs flooring and sanitary infrastructure, and equips it with child-friendly furniture, toys and educational materials, turning it into a fully functional preschool classroom. The Ministry of National Education appoints teachers and staff and operates these classrooms as official public preschool units.
Mayor Fatma Sahin summarizes the system with the words: “You show us a suitable place inside your site; we transform it into a preschool and the Ministry of Education assigns the teacher.” She emphasizes that this model is the first and only of its kind in Türkiye. In addition to traditional stand-alone school buildings, it offers a new scale as an “on-site public preschool network” inside housing estates.
The project started in 2021 with two sites. By its third year, classrooms had been opened in six different estates; with the newly added units the total number reached eight classrooms, providing preschool education to around 600 children. As of 2024, new classrooms opened in additional estates and visits by ministry officials show that the model is expanding.
For families, the biggest change is the removal of school bus costs and travel stress. Children attend school in a safe area within their own site, while especially working mothers can leave their children in an official public institution and continue their daily routines more comfortably. Children growing up with peers from the same estate strengthen both socialization and adaptation to school culture.
In Gaziantep, “Kindergarten in My Yard” currently focuses on estates with at least 100 households. It offers a structure that can be rapidly scaled for large housing complexes, public housing projects and residential compounds in big cities. However, for the model to spread nationwide, similar “neighborhood preschool” applications tailored to smaller estates and rural districts are also needed.
For now, Gaziantep stands out as the pioneering city that has turned the idea of a public preschool in the site yard into reality. “Kindergarten in My Yard” draws attention as a model that Türkiye should closely watch, both in terms of local government–ministry cooperation and the goal of improving access and equality in preschool education.
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