School Principals’ Administrative Competency: Teachers’ Views

Abstract

School principals are key factors in schools. Their selection, appointment and training procedures differ in many countries. The Turkish educational system has undergone significant transformation that has radically changed the expectations placed upon the school principals. According to the current law in Turkey, they are appointed to their posts for four years after an interview conducted by the governor, provincial director of the Ministry of National Education (MEB) and Chief/Deputy Administrator. In recent years, a lot of principals have been appointed to their posts in this way, which is criticized rigorously by educational environments as experience and qualification in school administration are not prioritized. This implementation makes their administrative competency become more contradicted than ever. Therefore, this qualitative research offers some insights into their competencies by investigating teachers’ opinions about their principals’ administrative competency in the profession as well as in the Turkish educational context in terms of their behaviors of instructional leadership, organizational development and creating a positive school culture. The emerging evidence highlights that the principals of this sample are not experienced and competent enough in all the competency areas researched in this study.