Evaluation of the Ministry of National Education's policies and practices regarding primary schools during the Covid-19 pandemic period

This research it is aimed to determine the options of the administrators and teachers working in primary schools and the students and parents of these schools in order to evaluate the policies and practices of the Ministry of National Education regarding primary schools during the Covid-19 pandemic period. Multiple case design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The data were collected from primary schools in Alanya, Antalya in the 2021-2022 academic year. Document analysis and interview method were used as data collection methods. In this direction, interviews were conducted with 4 administrators, 7 teachers, 8 students and 8 parents of public schools from primary school level. Content analysis and descriptive analysis methods were used in the analysis of the data obtained from the participants. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was determined that the policies and practices of the Ministry of National Education were implemented for the purpose of uninterrupted education, and that the policies and practices during the Covid-19 pandemic period were implemented all over Turkey and were not left to the initiative of the schools, due to the centralist management approach of the Turkish National Education system being dominant. In this direction, school administrators, teachers, students and parents had to go through radical changes with the policies and practices implemented by the Ministry of National Education. For this reason, adaptation problems and system problems related to the practices in schools made for precautionary purposes have emerged. As a result of the analysis of the data, it was concluded that school administrators and teachers could not reach every student during the Covid-19 pandemic period and that learning losses in students were high when face-to-face education was reinstated. As a result of the interviews with the students, the students stated that they had learning losses and that their education was difficult during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the information obtained from the parents, it was concluded that the frequent changes in the situation of the schools and the fact that no one could do anything for a solution made the Covid-19 pandemic period difficult. In this context, it has been concluded that schools have entered a new education process with the Covid-19 pandemic period, and education and training are faced with various problems with this process. Keywords: Covid-19, Pandemic, Education