Accountability in Turkish national education system

The aim of this research is to examine the phenomenon of accountability in Turkish National Educational System and to determine the opinions of administrators, inspectors, internal auditors who work at Ministry of National Education (MEB) and educational union managers about the accountability practices in the education system.Survey method was used in this research. The data of research was collected by the questionnaire of ?Scale of Accountability Practices in Turkish National Education System? including the subscales of Responsibility, Standards, Transparency, Checking and Questioning developed by the researcher.The study population consists of 52 directors general and deputy directors general, 75 heads of department, 10 internal auditors, 320 inspector of ministry, 81 provincial directors of education and 3300 inspectors of education who work at MEB in 2010-2011 educational year and upper level and provincial managers of three educational unions (Türk Eğitim-Sen, Eğiitm Bir-Sen and Eğitim-Sen). The surveys were sent to all of the participants in the study population except inspectors of education; from each of 81 provinces 8 inspectors of education, totally 648, were selected as the study sample by using the random sampling method.% 72.3 of the surveys from educational administrators, internal auditors and inspectors were analyzed statistically. Besides, %43 of the surveys from the managers of Türk Eğitim-Sen, %54 of the surveys from the managers of Eğitim-Bir-Sen and only %0.02 of the surveys from the managers of Eğitim-Sen were analyzed statistically.In data analysis, means and standart deviation were the descriptive statistics; t-test and ANOVA were the inferential statistics. The relationship between each of the subscales is found out by using Pearson Correlation analysis.According to the findings obtained from this study, it is concluded that many of the accountability practices are not carried out at the sufficient level in Turkish National Education System. Besides that, according to participants? duties, sexes, ages, professional seniority and education level, it is determined that there are significant differences in participants? opinions and there is a medium-level positive and meaningful relationships between each of the subscales.Keywords: Turkish National Educational System, Accountability, Responsibility, Standards, Transparency, Checking and Questioning