School Teachers’ and Administrators’ Opinions about Disability Services, Quality of Schools, Total Quality Management and Quality Tools

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to determine primary school administrators’ and teachers’ opinions about the quality of their schools; the school administrators and teachers’ knowledge about Total Quality Management and quality tools and the quality tools used in primary schools. The research has been carried out with a qualitative approach and it is in the case study pattern. The participants consisted of 16 teachers and 4 school administrators working in primary schools in North Cyprus. The participants were chosen via maximum sampling method. The findings show that the current situation in schools contradicts with the basic principles of Total Quality Management. It was determined that school administrators were ignorant about Total Quality Management and none of the teachers and school administrators had previously heard the concept of quality tools. Teachers and school administrators mentioned disabled students as an issue. It seems like teachers have problems in behaving in the right way towards these students. They do not know how to improve these students’ talents because they are not educated on the subject. Via tools of quality teachers and school administrators may find reasons and solutions for issues like people with disabilities and plan events to promote disability awareness.

KEYWORDS:

• Awareness
• disability services
• management
• primary school
• quality tools
• school administrator
• school culture
• total quality management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.