Hourly-paid teachers in the context of flexible employment policies in the National Education System

In Türkiye, as in the civil servant system in general, policies which is towards the transition to the public personnel system in national education system is gaining prevalence. While the new public administration approach provides the main references of the personnel structure flexibility policies, this approach gains a concrete form through the different types of teaching employment in the regions of the National Education and mainly through employment and contracted teaching practices. In the education system, many paid teachers are employed due to both the shortage of teachers and the problems experienced in the distribution of teachers across the country. Paid teachers work without any job security and they charge in proportion to the hours they attend. As well as working conditions it is known that paid teachers run into various problems in the school system arising from other teachers, administrators, parents and students. The general purpose of this research is to analyze the paid teaching practice in the context of flexible personnel employment policies in the National Education System, based on the opinions of administrators, permanent teachers and paid teachers with its different dimensions. This study is a qualitative research in the phenomenology pattern. Semi-structured interview technique was used as a qualitative research technique in the research. The study group of the research is in the province of Ankara in the 2020 – 2021 academic year; consists of school principals, paid teachers and permanent teachers working in public schools at primary, secondary and high school levels. While determining the study group, the sampling technique was used to provide maximum diversity from purposive sampling techniques based on the variables of gender, age, seniority, graduated branch and educational status. There are a total of 50 participants in the working group, including 10 school principals, 20 paid teachers and 20 permanent teachers. In the research, it has been determined that paid teachers have a series of problems such as low wages, insufficient personal rights, lack of job security, being exposed to various discriminations for the school system. It has been concluded that the paid teaching practice is considered as an incorrect form of employment by the components of the school system in terms of the quality of education. It has been proposed to abolish paid teaching and, if not, to improve the work and working conditions of paid teachers.