School administrators and parental opinions on financing problems in primary and secondary schools

In Turkey, basic education is guaranteed as a free right under Article 42 of the constitution. However, many needs of schools can not be met sufficiently since the state loaded this task has been communicating resources through central management. This leads the school administration to find resources in different ways and to receive donations. These donations which collected have brought the school administration and the parents face to face. Financial problems in schools is one of the most important reasons of this research. This research is a qualitative study conducted with the aim of presenting the finance problems in primary and secondary schools with the opinions of managers and parents and developing suggestions in the light of the findings. The data were collected through a phenomenology technique of qualitative research methods which enable the school principals and parents to express their views in more detail. The study group of the research consisted of 40 participants in ten primary schools and ten secondary school administrators and parents from Antalya, Muratpaşa, Kepez and Konyaaltı districts. Participants' opinions were obtained through the semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. After the interview records were converted into text, the data was analyzed with content and document analysis method. The themes were created by grouping concepts which releated to each other. As a result of the research; due to lack of resources, it has been observed that school administrators have searched for resources and therefore they cannot spend enough time on education. The search activities of financial resources had a negative impact on the managerial activities of the school administrators. It is thought that the expectation of the Ministry of National Education from the school administrators is to ensure the functioning of the school's educational services in a healthy way according to the curriculum. However, due to the financial problems of the schools, it has been observed that managers often give priority to these problems.