Title: The Relationship between the Effectiveness of Schools and the School Culture Which Is Created In Primary Schools
Abstract: In information society, not only social structure but also social institutions have a fast process of change. One of the important social institutions of information society is education.The role of educational institutions in information society will be versatile. School is an institution which produces, offers and spreads information. The school of information society continually has to keep itself open to new developments. Institutional culture of school in information society will also be under importamt change. In such society, the institutional culture that school has must be one open to development and innovation, giving value to human resources and helping the individual realise himself. If executive management in an institution finds out the believes, makes coordination among them and starts cultural Dynamics, then institutional efficiency, productivity and performance will increase. From this point, it is accepted that culture, if well managed, positiva results appear in terms of institutional productivity and performance. When badly managed, negative results are expected. Strong culture has significantly positive effect on motivation, productivity and eventually performance.( Sisman, 2002:159 ) In this study, we investigated the relationship between the level of perception of the directors and the teachers and the level of efficiency in Primary Schools, belonging to the Ministry of Education, in central of Erzurum. Scanning method was used in the study, and school culture and effective school levels were determined depending on the level of perception of the directors and the teachers working in Primary schools. The nature of this study is made up of the directors and the teachers working in Primary Schools in city centrum of Erzurum, in Autumn term of the educataion period in 2007/2008. In the study, 80 directors and 833 teachers were included in the case study, who were determined by random sample method. 401 questionaire were included in the evaluation after inadequate and unfilled ones were excluded. In this study, fort he purpose of determination of school culture, ‘school culture inventory’ by Steve Gruenert and Jerry Valentine(1998 ) was used as a means of data collection upon their permission. The views of the directors and teachers regarding the effectiveness of Primary Schools were collected by a scale with 61 items developed by the researcher. In this context, the scale developed to determine the effectiveness of Primary Schools consists of 5 sections. According to the results obtained from the research, strong school culture in the schools of the directors and teachers attending to the survey can be reported to exist but it needs to be developed. From the findings, the Primary schools in the survey have necessary background required to have high level school culture, and will be able to have high level school culture in the case that they pay attention to certain cultural dimensions. According to the findings as to effective school, we can say that the directors and teachers perceived effectively the efficiency level of their schools with an average of ( :3,42). Examining all effective dimensions, we can say that the views of the directors and teachers are focused on ‘’highly agreed’’ choice in terms of the dimensions of the director of the school ( :3,5), the teacher ( :3,69), the course and atmosphere of education ( :3,53), the students ( :3,40) the directors and the teachers behave in the dimensions stated above in terms of effective school. The view of the directors and the teachers in the survey as to guardian dimension ( : 3 ), are seen to focus on ‘’medium agreed’’ choice. These results are supported by the studies such as , “Turkiye’de Ilkogretim Okullarinin Etkililigi” by Balci (1993), “Etkili Okul Yonetimi, Ilkokullarda Bir Arastirma” by Sisman(1996), , “Normal ve Tasimali Egitim Yapan Okullardaki Yonetici, Ogretmen ve Sekizinci Sinif Ogrencilerinin Okullarinin Etkililik Algilari” by Bastepe (2002) and “Ilkogretim Kurumlarinin Etkili Okulun Veliler Boyutundaki Ozellikleri Sahip Olma Duzeyleri” by Yarali (2002). These findings suggest that the coordination between school and the family could not be achieved on desired level in the schools in which the survey was done. In the evaluation of the averages, the highest average can be said to be in teacher dimension in terms of effective school dimension. Teachers dimension is followed by the dimensions of the course and atmosphere of education, the director of the school, the students and the guardians of the students. According to the results obtained from the survey, we can say that the directors and the teachers attending to the survey perceived effectively the efficiency of their schools. From the findings, the Primary Schools in this survey have necessary background reqired to reach high level effective school features, and in the case that they give importance to all dimensions of effective school, they can reach high level school features. According to the views of directors and teachers, a high level positive relationship between school culture and school effectiveness is determined in the schools surveyed. From this results we can say that the school culture formed in Primary schools affects significantly the effectiveness of the schools. According to the results obtained from the survey, we have concluded that the perceptions of the directors and the teachers attending to the survey do not have high level strong cultural features in terms of leadership depending upon cooperation, teacher cooperation, vocational development, common goals, colleague support and cooperation learning in achievement of strong culture of school. In this context, it is suggested that in-service training should be held for the directors and the teachers on school culture and cultural leadership. In appointment of the directors, the educational qualifications should be the first criteria and the ones with postgraduation degree should be preferred, in the case of lack of qualified directors, successful teachers in the examinations of educational leadership should be given in-service training, and the successful ones should be appointed director of the school. The school directors should give the teachers the possibilities of seminars and conferences to promote their vocational knowledge and experiences. The school management should give oppurtunity the guardians of the students to take part in the decisions in terms of education. The directors and the teachers should try to encourage the guardians to visit school and the teachers more often and to maket hem support the school in all aspects. The Ministry of Education should try to work on new projects upon effective school with universities in terms of promoting the awareness of urban and rural school directors and teachers.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['doaj']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 9
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot