Eğitimde Niteliğin Sistem Yaklaşımı ve Eleştirel Eğitim Anlayışı Açısından Tanımlanması Üzerine Bir Tartışma

The purpose of this study is to discuss the concept of quality in education. In educational literature, there are a lot of discussions on what is quality education. These discussions have been going on for years, and to be able to find an answer to this question, the concept of quality needs to be clarified. First of all, quality is a highly relative concept. In other words, its definition depends on who defines it and in which context it is defined. As a result, definition of quality with regard to education is also highly relative. In educational literature, quality of education is mostly judged based on quantitative indicators such as school numbers, student and teacher number, student and teacher ratios. Such jugdgements of quality in education are in fact based on conceptual framework of system understanding. However such a conceptualisation analyzes educational system with quantitative indicators leaving alone qualitative ones. On the other hand, critical education approach, which is mostly based on works of Paulo Freire, defines quality in education based on totally different arguments. While quantitative indicators are very important for system approach, arguements of critical education stems from emancipation, dialogue, and criticism of opression relations. As a result, this study seeks to discuss how definition of quality in education changes depending on systems and critical education perspectives.