The opinions of administrators, teachers and trainers on the role of educational administrators in ensuring adults' right to education

This study aimed to determine the views of administrators, teachers and trainees on the roles of educational administrators in ensuring adults' right to education. In the present study, designed as a mixed-method study, "convergent design", which is a widely used approach in interdisciplinary research, was adopted. In the quantitative part of the study, the target population consisted of 633 teachers working in lifelong learning institutions in the central districts of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality in the 2019-2020 academic year. There were 326 teachers in the sample determined using stratified sampling method. For the qualitative part of the study, 10 educational administrators working in the same institutions and and 12 trainees were included in the study groups formed for the qualitative part of the study, and the opinions of 52 teachers were obtained with open-ended questions added to the scale. The data for the quantitative part of the study were collected with the "Scale of Teachers' Opinions on the Roles of Educational Administrators in Ensuring Adults' Right to Education" developed by the researcher. The data for the qualitative part of the study were collected by using the "Interview Form for Educational Administrators' Opinions on the Roles of Educational Administrators in Ensuring Adults' Right to Education" and the "Interview Form for Trainees' Opinions on the Roles of Educational Administrators in Ensuring Adults' Right to Education" developed by the researcher. Quantitative data were analyzed using arithmetic mean and standard deviation values. The views of the participants were compared by t-test according to gender, type of institution, field of study and adult education training status variables, and by one-way analysis of variance according to seniority, age and education status variables. In the qualitative part of the study, the data obtained from the interviews and the answers given to the open-ended questions added to the scale were analyzed through content analysis method. According to teachers' opinions, educational administrators partially fulfill their roles regarding the functions of the institution. Educational administrators are of the opinion that they mostly fulfill their roles regarding the opening of literacy and vocational technical courses and ensuring inter-institutional cooperation. According to the trainees, the administrators ensure to open vocational and technical courses more; however, they are not able to meet the course demands that are evaluated. According to the opinions of educational administrators, teachers and trainees, educational administrators do not fulfill their roles for distance education activities sufficiently. Regarding their role in ensuring access to education for disadvantaged adults, educational administrators mostly state that they make arrangements to facilitate access for adults with disabilities. On the other hand, according to the views of teachers and trainees, educational administrators do not fulfill their roles regarding physical accessibility sufficiently. According to teachers, administrators mostly provide courses for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. In the study, the opinions of the teachers showed a significant difference according to the variables of gender, type of institution, field of study and the status of receiving adult education training, while there was no significant difference according to the variables of age, seniority and education level. According to the findings of the study, the lack of sufficient knowledge of educational administrators in the field of adult education, the inadequacy of institutional buildings for adult education, the limitation of the number of trainees in the legislation, and the inadequacy of the physical structure and equipment of the institutions have emerged as problem areas. Providing qualified in-service training on adult education to the staff of adult education institutions, increasing the number of adult education institutions and increasing their capacities, allowing education administrators to take initiative regarding the limitation on the number of trainees in the legislation, and improving educational environments are presented as suggestions for solutions in the study. Keywords: Adult, right to education, adult education, lifelong learning, public education, administrator, educational administrator.