Opinions of teachers and school managers on the change in basic education during the pandemic process

The concept of organizational change, which is inherent in organizations, is a very important phenomenon to ensure their survival. The phenomenon of change, which is already inevitable for organizations that are constantly growing and developing, has now gained special importance after the COVID-19 pandemic. In the global world, organizations expect change movements triggered by similar pandemics or climate crises. At this point, it has gained importance to be able to manage change well in organizations and to be able to fight the resistances experienced in the process. For this, it is necessary to understand the change in depth. The aim of the research in this direction is to examine the change experienced in the pandemic process, its causes, obstacles and results as a whole; to gain a perspective on the evaluation of the education system's ability to meet similar processes. The research was designed on a phenomenological pattern, which is a qualitative research method that examines the experiences of school administrators and teachers regarding the change in schools during the pandemic period. A semi-structured interview form was chosen as a tool to collect the required data. The study group of the research is a sample group of 20 people consisting of 10 school administrators and 10 teachers working in primary education schools in Şehitkamil and Şahinbey districts of Gaziantep Provincial Directorate of National Education. The interview results were analyzed by content analysis. As a result, during pandemic change is very sudden and unprepared, and that frequent changes occur as a negative factor. While there are problems in planning and decision making in the management process; inadequate parental support and lack of resources were experienced in classroom processes. Insufficient resources and inadequacy in command of information technologies have been recorded as a serious obstacle to change. The educational activities of the teachers, who stated that they experienced psychological problems throughout the process, were negatively affected by this situation. Considering the findings, both school administrators and teachers need some competencies in managing and executing sudden and unprepared changes. Based on the view that the transition todistance education will gain importance in the future, it is necessary to eliminate the deficiencies of all stakeholders in the field of information technologies in education. For crisis-like changes similar to this period, mechanisms should be established that will enable stakeholders to be psychologically stronger.