Abstract:

This qualitative study was carried out to examine the views of school administrators on the reasons for choosing school administration, the competencies that a school administrator should have, how school administrators should be selected, and the difficulties they experience in the process of starting to work as administrators. Within the scope of the research, 29 participants working as administrators at different school levels were interviewed. The data obtained from the interviews were subjected to content analysis. According to the findings obtained from the content analysis, attractive and driving factors are effective on school administrators' becoming school administrators. While competency, interest and desire, education and experience, professional career and authority were the themes of attractive factors, qualification, recommendation, relocation, alienation and incompetence were the themes of driving factors. The competencies that school administrators should have are divided into four different themes. These are management skills, personal characteristics, democracy and justice, and political perception. It was concluded that the majority of the participants were of the opinion that only the written exam was sufficient for the selection of school administrators. In addition, it was seen that the problems that school administrators experience when they first take office are due to personal, institutional, political and gender situations.

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