Administrators’ Opinions on Qualified School Characteristics of Project Schools

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate whether the PSs Schools (PSs) carry the qualifications of a qualified school, based on the views of school administrators and the documents on the websites of these schools. Within the scope of this research, qualified school is defined as a school concentrates on students’ nature, pays attention to the activity of students and authentic, free and democratic. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, conducted individually via face-to-face meetings with the administrators of six different PSs Schools in Istanbul. After the administrator interviews were conducted, the web sites of these schools were examined in relation to the history, mission and visions of schools, school councils, school board decisions, school projects and activities. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of research data. According to the results obtained from the research, the most important area of freedom in PSs is that the administrators can choose the teachers to work and the teachers may overcome the curriculum. The freedom of students is very limited, especially in the case of elective courses. Administrators have different opinions about the democratic aspects of their schools. This is a result of administrators’ looking at different aspects of the concept of democratic school. It can be said that the democratic structure of PSs became more evident during the election of student councils and the determination of the uniforms. According to another result of the research, the activation of the learners is taken over from the extracurricular activities and it seems that there is difficulty in finding time for the extracurricular activities. Physical limitations such as legislation and curricula prevent class building according to the interests and abilities of students. On the other hand, it is stated that classes suitable for the student’s natural strengths, interests and abilities are possible in extracurricular activities such as project studies and science olympiads.