Problems encountered by school principals: Unchanging facts of changing Turkey

There are 177 universities in Turkey, training teachers at approximately 60 faculties, and 800 thousand teachers working at schools of the Ministry of National Education. It is known that there are 18 million students studying at these institutions. Managing an organization of this size may cause several problems. This descriptive paper which was planned prior to the start of the 2014-2015 academic year and carried out before the politically-motivated dismissal of thousands of school principals in 2014, aims to reveal the problems faced by principals in Canakkale. For the purpose of the study, 155 principals working at pre-schools, primary schools, and secondary schools/high schools in Canakkale were selected as the population of the study. The most frequent problems identified in the research were economic problems. Few of the participants marked undesirable behaviors of students as a major problem. Participants also listed some relevant issues concerning academic staff and physical conditions of schools. © Kamla-Raj 2016.