the training problem of school administrators and mentoring in turkey assoc. prof. dr. kürşad...

The Training Problem of School Administrators and Mentoring in

Turkey

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kürşad YILMAZAssoc. Prof. Dr. Yahya ALTINKURT

Assist. Prof. Dr. Orhan Murat KALFA

ISNITE 2014. II. International Symposium, May 22-24 2014.

It can be said that one of the most important problems of Turkish education system is the training of school administrators.

In Turkish education system, "those who are successful in teaching will also be successful in the school management" belief is sovereign with the perception of "the essence of the profession is being a teacher".


In the past, some in good faith applications are off to one side, it can be said that Turkish education system does not have the tradition and system of training of the administrators. At the same time, it is mentioned about three tendencies for the training of school principals in Turkey. These are:

• Educational Sciences Model • Apprenticeship Model • Additional Criteria


EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES MODELEducational Sciences Model defends that the administration is a scientific study area and the people who would be administrator should be appointed in the areas such as organization, administration and leadership. In the late 1970s, in Turkey; although there were "Educational Administration and Planning" programs at the undergraduate level in many faculties of education, people who graduated from these programs could not be employed as a school principal by the Ministry of Education. Candidates who graduated from these programs employed in some fields of teaching and for the lack of need for these programs they were closed at undergraduate study level.


APPRENTICESHIP MODELAs applied in the Turkish education system, the Apprenticeship Model is a natural extension of the centralized structure of the Turkish education system. School principals are the representatives of the central authority at school. Apprenticeship model find being a teacher sufficient for educational and school management. The essence of the model can be summarized as "there is no school of administration".


ADDITIONAL CRITERIAThere was a major step for school administration to be a profession in 1998. With the regulations updated in 1999 and 2000, the Ministry of Education set objective standards for the administration of education institutions brought 120 hours of pre-service training and examination. Even if the education duration is not at the desired level, it became a beacon of hope for the improvement of educational administration in Turkey. However, this regulation was abolished in 2004.


Application of additional criteria is a candidate debugging mechanism rather than the administrator training model and in administrator training the traditional "Apprenticeship Model" is unchanged fundamentally.


When these models are taken into account, the mentoring model which is a more modern application of the apprenticeship model used in the training of administrators is considered that it may be an alternative application in training of administrators in Turkey.


Mentor is the person who consults and guides the individual in order to assist his/her career development. It can be said that there is a kind of master-apprentice relationship between persons.

In other words, the people who we call mentor can be characterized as the professionals who are experts in his/her field, educate people in the same field and give consultation to them.


Mentoring in many countries, especially in America, is made by professional mentors who took education in the field of school administrators’ training and even are accredited by independent organizations.

However, these applications are different from the apprenticeship model that is used in school administrators’ training in Turkey. In Turkey's current administrator training models (we can also say this for the teacher training system) it can be just mentioned about the roles of mentoring of the administrators.


AIM

The aim of this research is to determine the opinions of school administrators about on-the-job training of school administrators and mentoring which is a possible administrator training system.


Participants

In the study, the purposeful sampling technique was used in the determination of the participants. Accordingly, totally 10 school administrators including 5 school principals and 5 vice-principals who worked in the city of Kütahya in fall term of 2013-2014 academic year constitute the study group of the research.

METHOD


In the study, the data was collected by a semi-structured data collection tool that was developed by the researchers.

Data Collection


The research data was collected by face to face interviews with school administrators. Duration of the interviews ranges from 15 to 45 minutes. Total printout of the interviews is 92 pages.

Data Collection


Verilerin AnaliziDescriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the research data. Researchers analyzed data all together in order to determine the obtained data will be collected, organized and presented under which theme. Then they formed the themes. In the process of forming of the themes, the printout of the interviews was read and the prominent themes were identified. The interview coding key was formed with the help of themes that have been formed. New themes were identified for the opinions that were not suitable for the themes identified. This process was conducted separately by the researchers. Then coming together, consensus was reached by discussing on the differences.

Data Analysis


Opinions of the participants about on-the-job training of school administrators were collected under 3 themes. These are:

1)Current school administrator training system2)The problems encountered in the early years of

their management and how these problems are overcame

3)Possible mentors training system in training administrators

FINDINGS


Participants’ Appointment Process of the School Management

K1: Müdür Başyardımcısı.

Code Current Duty Seniority Administration Experience

P1 Principal 39 years 31 years


P3 Vice-principal 24 years 14 years









Opinions about the current school administrator training system

All of the participants express an opinion that there is not an administrator training system in Turkey, the current system is an appointment system and they sufficed with their own efforts.

Once, there is not such a system. But you have asked... I wish it was. I wish we can say that there is system related to the administrator training and we can recruit it, but there is not such a system. There is not the solution of our most important problem. We tried to suffice with our own efforts. (P3)

In Turkey, there is not a school administrator training system already. In short, there is not given a special training to become an administrator. Previously, the school principal offered the administrator; school principal is offered and appointed by provincial directorate of national education. Then, the exam was discovered as you know. After the exam, vice-principals and principals are appointed in schools based on the exam results. So, there is not an administrator training system. (P6)


The problems encountered in the early years of their management and how these problems are overcame

Under investigation all of the school administrators except one indicated that they have difficulty especially in dealing with bureaucratic issues in the first years of the administration. They indicated that they tried to overcome these problems by themselves and occasionally consulted with an experienced administrator.

We learned everything gropingly. Supervisors who came from the Ministry of Education taught us. Because, none of them was taught to us in university. (P5)

Mostly we try to solve by ourselves. Now let me tell you this much, I have reached easily the administrators who are in the school that I received education but for the other school administrators I have not. They said they have no time or often direct to the unrelated people. (P3)

Everyone can tell that they encounter many problems, but my luck was: Like master-apprentice relationship… besides an experienced vice-principal around six months, as we did the same jobs with together I nearly did not have difficulty. So, I can be one of the rarely lucky people. There was someone whom I can consult and learned a lot. (P4).

There were problems, of course. I tried to solve by myself. Sometimes I consulted but you cannot consult everyone. Sometimes, while he/she was giving information you felt the glance of belittling in other words “also ask me this”. I need to find someone to consult trustfully. (P1)


Opinions about the current school administrator training system

Under investigation all of the school administrators found mentoring applications favorable. In addition, four participants emphasized that the application has to be done by professional mentors. Otherwise, they indicated that the mentors who are incapable and appointed with ideological reasons would bring more harm than benefit.

While taking this support, of course, it should be taken from the experts in the field. When the supports that are given by experts and his/her experiences in this issue are combined there occurs even more pleasant situation. If there has been training in Turkey with a master-apprentice relationship as in Ahi-community a large part of the problems in the current education would not happen or there would be facilitated solutions. (P8)

I believe that it is very necessary. Because we feel humiliated as we are asking questions to someone. Our administrators see themselves generally inaccessible and the most intelligent of the school. For that reason, people should be equipped and professionally. (P3)

There should be but professionally. Not with favoritism.. If the person who appointed as mentor though he/she is not unworthiness sees that position as political power or as swaggering does not benefit even harm. (P4)ISNITE 2014. II. International Symposium, May 22-24 2014.

LAST WORD

The participated school administrators agree that the lack of training system of school administrators in Turkey. Participants expressed that they encountered numerous difficulties in the experience of their management and they tried to solve the difficulties in consultation with the school administrators in their environment.


In fact, good administrators mentor their personnel to a certain degree. Research results also confirm this.

For example, in Turkey, it is required to make one year vice-principal to become a school principal. During this time, it can be foreseen that vice-principals are trained with the apprenticeship model.


However, in the present structure, this situation is a situation which is completely left to chance. Because:• Most of the current school principals did not

receive any pre-service training related to school administration.

• School administrators' experiences are more directed to do bureaucratic works is the school.

• In the rotation of the administrators, it is not applied a healthy performance evaluation system and seniority is more taken as a basis.

• Thus, whether school administrators have competences of training new school administrators or not constitutes in itself a question mark.


Therefore, administrator training system with the help of mentor is an important alternative that should be considered and discussed in Turkey. Finding possible applications favorable all of the school administrators who participated in the study is remarkable.


In this study, it was aimed that mentoring was discussed as an alternative model in the training of school administrators in Turkey.

In the future studies, it can be suggested that more comprehensive and detailed studies will be done related to the subject.


Thanks for your attention…


the training problem of school administrators and mentoring in turkey assoc. prof. dr. kürşad...

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