Free DataCamp Classrooms Now Available to Turkish Secondary Schools

DataCamp Classrooms offers free access to DataCamp’s 410+ data science course library, industry-leading certification program, and much more to teachers and their students. All teachers need to do is apply and, once they’re approved, they can add as many students as they want.

Today, we’re happy to announce that Turkish secondary school teachers are now eligible to apply for DataCamp Classrooms!

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What does this mean? All Turkish educators and students over 16 can access DataCamp’s entire curriculum, for free. Teachers can apply to DataCamp Classrooms by submitting this form and providing a link to their faculty page or staff directory. DataCamp may request more information from the teacher via email, so applicants are encouraged to check their inboxes thoroughly to expedite the approval process. 

Once approved, teachers can invite all of their students over 16 into the group, thereby giving them access.

Attempting to grasp the current situation

Following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southeast Türkiye on February 6, 2023, there has been an inconceivable level of disruption across all corners of Turkish society.

According to the UN, over 850,000 children remain displaced in Türkiye and Syria and over two million people have been forced to seek temporary shelter.

With unprecedented disasters, our regular focus—school, personal development, and passions—is replaced by an instinctive need to survive. The immediacy of needing to find somewhere to sleep, something to eat, locate lost loved ones, and protect your family erases all other priorities.

Specifically, access to education. 

Even if it doesn’t appear as an instant priority, a lack of stable educational resources creates a long-term societal deficit, especially for younger people. According to a 2020 study by Oxford, earthquake-affected children's test scores put them "one and a half to two years behind their peers in unaffected regions".

Prior to the earthquake, a DataCamp Classrooms initiative was already in motion to make DataCamp free for all educators and students in Türkiye. Now, we’re looking to integrate and expand free data science education in Türkiye as quickly and broadly as possible.

How two educators are helping all of Türkiye

DataCamp Classrooms for secondary schools is already available in countries where DataCamp has an office: Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Since then, we’ve expanded to Poland, Czechiya, Canada, Australia, and France.

Fast forward to January 2023. Several weeks prior to the earthquake, our social impact manager Nathaniel Taylor-Leach received an email from Gokay Batmaz, a secondary school teacher who reached out to DataCamp about bringing Classrooms to Turkish schools. 

To make this a reality, Gokay painstakingly collected and cleaned the email domains of every public and private secondary school in his country, and then shared the data necessary to fast-track DataCamp access. 

His dedication to enabling data education for potentially thousands of Turkish educators and students was encapsulated when he followed up with cleaned email data on February 6—the day of the initial earthquake struck. Alongside sharing all the email information which allowed us to initiate Classrooms in Türkiye, his email demonstrated the severity and immediacy of the disaster;

"Due to the 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes in Türkiye today, education has been suspended in some schools at the moment…"

In the literal wake of the earthquake, Gokay’s commitment to pushing Classrooms through illustrates a monumental level of devotion to democratizing education. Secondly, as most schools officially moved online on February 20, access to digital learning platforms has only become more vital to minimize the impact on education.

Regarding the potential benefits of Classrooms for Turkish students, Gokay had this to say: