Levels of acquiring basic knowledge, skills and values of primary school children according to the viewpoints of their teachers

In our day and age, when information and technology are developing rapidly, it is educational institutions that have assumed responsibility for educating individuals in accordance with the needs of society. Through educational institutions, societies do provide their members with basic knowledge, skills and values so that they can lead their lives in a far better way. Education is known to greatly contribute to raising physically and psychologically healthier individuals who are also supposed to actively make contributions to the development of the society they have been a part of. Individuals who have earned basic knowledge, skills and values that are vital to their educational lives tend to mature much earlier than others and be of more benefit to the society they are living in. For these reasons, a good deal of emphasis has been made on instilling target basic knowledge, skills and values in primary school children so that this first level of education can function as perfectly as possible. This survey was conducted on the purpose of determining levels of acquiring basic knowledge, skills and values of primary school children according to the viewpoints of their teachers. By applying survey method, rational group sampling was taken; among the center primary schools of Ministry of Education in seven education regions in Eskişehir, one school randomly chosen from each low, medium and high socio-economic status. The survey was carried out with 310 teachers in those primary schools. A questionnaire with 49 items was utilized to collect the data. For data analysis, the teachers' opinions were put forth with digits and percentages. In order to identify whether the mean values of the responses differ according to the teachers' gender, service lives and the socio-economic status of their schools, independent t-test for comparing two values and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for three or more comparisons were used. In case of F value was significant as a result of variance analysis, to define within which groups the significance occurred, Tukey HSD (Tukey's Honestly Significant Test) multiple comparison test was applied. The present study concluded that primary school children appear to acquire basic knowledge, skills and values according to the viewpoints of their teachers. The teachers agreed that ?Knowing means of satisfying their individual needs? was the easiest piece of knowledge that could be learned at this level, while ?Knowing what social problems are? was shown to be the most difficult piece of knowledge for them to learn. It was also determined that ?Skills of speaking and writing using Turkish in an impressive way? was the skill with the highest level of learning among all the skills meant to be taught to them at this level, while ?Enterprising (taking risks, being open to new opinions, being prepared for criticism and failures etc.)? was shown to be the toughest skill to be learned. As to the values acquired, ?Giving importance to the unity of family? appeared to be the easiest one to be learned, while ?Responsibility? was the toughest one. The most important reasons for which some pieces of basic knowledge, skills and values seem to be hard to be sufficiently acquired by primary school children is, according to their teachers, that parents are not caring enough, and there are too many students in one class, and that their schools are not equipped with a sufficient number of such facilities as library, laboratory, theatre, sports centre. According to the teachers, the most important reason of not being able to realize basic knowledge, skills and values to the students in first step of primary education is that ?The students? parents are not concerned enough?. The most important suggestion realated to the realization of these basic knowledge, skills and values is that ?The parents should be educated through some academic courses?.