Investigation the understanding of specialization in the Turkish education system

Education is the most crucial process that lays the foundation for the construction of a country's future. For this reason, appropriate management of education is necessary to ensure that the future of society is not squandered. The generation that will shape the future of society can be nurtured through an education management approach that prioritizes the benefits in the field of education. In this context, educational organizations should be designed at a cognitive level that aligns with the demands of the era. In this context, educational organizations should be designed at a cognitive level that aligns with the demands of the era. The organizations which have to keep up with the changes of the 21st century, need qualified personnel more than yesterday to achieve success, and they are striving to establish divisions of labor and specialization in this direction. The inability to provide specialization and development according to the required field of human resources is one of the main problems of the Turkish Education System. In this regard, various practices related to the specialization process have been implemented in the Turkish Education System from the past to the present; however, these practices have not been consistently maintained. Employees who wanted to be experts could not be trained, and qualified experts could not be utilized sufficiently. With the constantly occurring system changes, the specialization practices have not gained clarity in the minds of the employees. From this point of view, the specialization approach of our Turkish Education System and the practices of the Ministry of National Education on specialization have formed the main subject of our research. The aim of this research is to determine the understanding of the school principal, teachers, education inspectors and education experts regarding the specialization process in the Turkish Education System from past to present and to evaluate the current specialization practices of the Ministry of National Education according to the career principle and contemporary management approach of human resources management. With our study, it is aimed to identify negative situations, if any, in the system, to offer suggestions for resolving them, and to create resources for new practitioners. The study group of our research included 36 participants, consisting of administrators and teachers working in Antalya Kepez, Muratpaşa and Konyaaltı districts in the 2022-2023 academic year, education inspectors and education experts within the Provincial Directorate of National Education. Maximum variation sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods, was used in this study. Volunteering was taken into account in the formation of the working group. Data were collected through a semi-structured form developed by the researcher. As a result of the research, several findings concerning these practices were identified: the lack of continuity in implementation, the appointment of individuals without an educational background as teachers, the absence of merit-based criteria in managerial recruitment, ineffective operation of qualified education processes during specialization, inefficient utilization of trained manpower leading to resource wastage, recruitment decisions influenced by political tendencies, and the reduction of specialization to merely an economic career step. Additionally, the study revealed factors such as top-down practices without considering employee demands and needs, and the absence of objective and scientific criteria within the education system. It was determined that factors such as working, working in a centralized manner without taking into account the demands and needs of the employees, and the lack of objective and scientific criteria are included in the education system. Furthermore, when evaluating human resources management in terms of career principles, it was concluded that current practices lack motivation for specialization, lack an egalitarian and objective approach, and suffer from the absence of job descriptions for specific titles. To improve the specialization process, it is essential to develop and employ measurement tools based on objective criteria and competence. Moreover, experts should be evaluated in positions suitable for their fields, thereby contributing to the enhancement of education quality.