Attitudes of education of education administrators towards the new public management approach, the case of Kocaeli province

The 21st century has witnessed a process of change and transformation in all countries around the world. One of the areas affected by this process has been the management structures of states. Until the late 20th century, the traditional management approach that prevailed in the public sector was the target of various criticisms. In time, it lost its functionality and left its place to a new management understanding. Our aim in our study is to determine the attitudes of education administrators towards the new public administration understanding. The study consists of 6 chapters. Immediately after the introduction, the concepts of state, administration, public administration and educational administration are explained in the context of conceptual framework. In the third chapter, the birth and theoretical foundations of the traditional public administration understanding are explained. In addition, the general characteristics of the traditional public administration understanding are explained. In the fourth chapter, the criticisms of the traditional public administration and the transition process to the New Public Administration were examined and the basic strategies of the New Public Administration were emphasised. In the fifth chapter, the traditional public administration and new public administration approaches are compared and the main differences between the two management approaches are presented. In the sixth part of the study; in the context of field research, a Likert scale questionnaire was applied to all education administrators working in Kocaeli Province to measure their attitudes towards new public administration strategies. The new public administration strategies scale, which has been previously tested for validity and reliability, was used as a data collection tool. The data obtained as a result of the study were analysed with SPSS 23 package programme. As a result of the analysis, the perspectives of education administrators on new public administration strategies and the level of adoption of these strategies were measured. Finally, according to the findings, various determinations were made and recommendations were presented.