Innovation Efforts in Education and School Administration: Views of Turkish School Administrators

Year 2016, Volume: 16 Issue: 63, 0 - 0, 15.04.2016

Ugur Akın

Abstract

Problem Statement: In the current information era, nearly all organizations
make efforts to make innovations in the fields of information,
communication, technology, etc. Educational organizations are no
exception to this trend. Moreover, it can be argued that educational
institutions make a particular effort to rapidly keep pace with change. In
recent years, the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) has
demonstrated efforts to actualize many innovations in Turkey. However,
these innovation efforts have been intensely criticized by students,
parents, teachers, and even educational administrators. Many
implementations are removed from the system after a few years or a
shorter period, and subsequent implementations that again only last for a
few years are introduced to replace them. Some implementations that
require very radical changes are incomprehensible to teachers and
administrators and thus are impossible to spread. In-service education
designed to actualize the innovation efforts have also been exposed to
criticism in terms of their quality.
Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this research is to determine the
opinions of school administrators about the innovation efforts of MoNE in
Turkey that have gradually increased over recent years.
Method: This research used qualitative methods, and data were collected
through the form of semi-structured interview. The interviews were
conducted with 25 school administrators working in elementary,
secondary and high schools. The data were analyzed by content analysis.
Findings and Results: According to the findings, school administrators
believe MoNE doesn’t consider the criteria of relative advantage to old 

implementation and the compatibility of new implementation to the Turkish education system when it puts innovation efforts into practice. Moreover, the participants specify that the innovation efforts aren’t sufficiently tested and sufficient notification or training has not been conducted in relation to these issues. While the participants have found the performances of school administrators in actualizing the innovation efforts sufficient, they specify that the innovation decisions should be made via wide-based participation in order for MoNE’s innovation efforts’ success.
Conclusions and Recommendations: Consequently, school administrators have negative opinions about the manner in which innovation implementations by MoNE are realized. MoNE should consider the compatibility of the innovation efforts with the existing education system, and it should improve its pilot studies. For the innovation to spread, innovation decisions should first be made via extensive participation, and in-service training relevant to innovations should be made more suitable for its purpose.
Keywords: Turkish educational system, educational administration, school administration, innovation in education