Educational Administrators’ Views on their Awareness about Educational Planning Opiniones de los administradores educativos sobre su conciencia sobre la planificación educativa

The purpose of this research was to determine administrators’ views on their awareness of educational planning, purpose, benefits and problems they encounter with it. It was also aimed to find out if the administrators received education and training in educational planning. The research employed a qualitative phenomenological research design. The participants were 15 administrators who were determined with a maximum diversity method. The data were gathered with semi-structured interview technique and analyzed with descriptive analysis approach. Results revealed that most administrators received in-service training or education in educational planning, underlined numerous benefits, and they are aware of the importance of it. It was also discovered that although some administrators encounter problems, they consider educational planning as an important tool to achieve organizational goals.


Introduction
Education can be defined as a process that enables the development of all aspects of the individual and the desired behavior change. In this case, Ünal (1996) defines education as a process that provides knowledge, skills and other characteristics individuals and the society need. Besides, it is considered that education has a critical role in economic development of a country. In this regard, a great deal of theoreticians underline a direct relationship between education and economic development. Among them, T. R. Malthus, A. Smith and D. Ricardo conducted studies showing the contribution of education to economic development. For example, as manpower that provides economic and social development is trained and educated through education, according to Malthus, the better education individuals get, the higher the society gets.
Researches conducted on the relationship between economic development and education conclude that knowledge, skills and attitudes gained through education may increase the income level of both the country and individuals (Büyükaslan, 1995;Erdoğan, 2001;Günkör, 2017;Taş &Yenilmez, 2008). Also Karakütük (2016) notes that the behaviors acquired through education increase productivity in the economy. For this reason, Serin (1979) claims that education is a great external saving expenditure and generously entitled to public support. Therefore, this makes planning an important process.

Planning
As an important management process, planning is defined in various ways by many authors. According to Mintzberg (1981) planning means working out in broad outline things that need to be done considering the future, and methods for doing them to accomplish the purposes of an organization. Similarly, Karakütük (2017) defined planning as a design and action that will take an organization from a current point to the desired point. Adem (1997) also defined planning as a balanced distribution of scarce resources. Bursalıoğlu (2002) puts that it is a mental process that predicts thinking before practice and also a rational approach to predetermined goals and the preparation stage for their realization. It reduces or eliminates all future instability, focuses attention on goals, leads to economic business and facilitates control.
Planning decisions have considerable impacts on any systems. These influences may remain for many decades, and many of these decisions are irreversible. In order to gain a better understanding of these long-standing impacts, planners require a systematic approach to evaluate the planning policy instruments utilized (Shahab, Clinch & O'Neill, 2019). In this sense, good planning can help administrators make well-directed decisions, interpret conditions correctly, and provide a realistic evaluation among existing options.
After observing its contribution to economy in developed countries, both underdeveloped and developing countries adopted planning to their management processes and in 1950s and 1960s, planning was considered as a necessary tool for economic and social development of these nations (Benveniste, 2007). Turkey is one of these countries that started to prepare development plans in 1960s. Although planning studies started in the 1930s in Turkey, it was made compulsory with the 1961 Constitutional Law. At first, the plans did not include social goals till 1960, but then economic and social problems were added into the plans legally (Karakütük, 2001). In the development plans, the impact of education on public property and economic development is emphasized more. For this reason, educational planning started to find plane in these plans more often.

Education Planning
Educational planning can be defined as a primary instrument that helps students and societies to achieve their goals. In the broadest sense, educational planning is the implementation of a rational and regular analysis technique to the education process in order to make education more effective and efficient in meeting the needs of students and the society to achieve their goals (Coombs, 1973). To Kavak (1992), educational planning is an innovation and decision making process and resource allocation mechanism in an educational system. Also, Adem (2008) defined educational planning as an action that aims to explore the future or various options organizations have in order to realize their goals. It draws attention to certain problems and provides solutions to existing or probable problems that may arise in the future.
According to Hesapcıoğlu (1984), educational planning is a short, medium and longterm prediction of future in accordance with social, economic and political objectives, rational analysis of the educational organization as a system, determination of basic facts about the quantity and quality of the educational process. Özdem (2003) claims that the use of scientific methods is essential for educational planning for eliminating the tension caused by sharing Moreover, Adem (2008) puts that educational administrators should deal with educational planning regarding national, regional, local level management issues, supervising schools, staff issues, managerial structure and methods, educational costs (unit cost per student, investment cost for one student additional capacity, unit cost per teacher, unit per graduate, cost) and their distribution among national, regional, local authorities. With educational planning, a road map can be drawn to ensure a balanced distribution of these resources and provide manpower for a country (Altundemir, 2012).

Education planning in Turkey
There are several institutions which are responsible for education planning in Turkey. It is primarily implemented by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). Küçüker (2010) underlines that within the framework, education has taken its place in the development plans as a sector. Ergen (2013)

Purpose of the research
According to Coombs (1973); education planning is the application of the rational and regular analysis technique to the educational process in order to make education more effective and efficient in meeting the needs of students and society and realizing its goals. This shows that educational planning is one of the vital tools for educational maanegement teams. However, it is a matter of discussion whether educational administrators are aware of educational planning and know the purpose and benefits of it. It is also important to know if educational administrators encounter any problems with educational planning while managing their instiitutions. For this reason, the main purpose of this research was to determine education administrators' views on their awareness of educational planning, purpose, benefits and problems they encounter with it. It was also aimed to find out if the administrators received education and training in educational planning.

Method
The current research employed a phenomenological research design which is a part of a qualitative research method. These kinds of phenomenological researches collect data from individuals who have some experience about a certain subject. According to Creswell (2017) these methods have strong philosophical backgrounds. In such researches, individuals have both subjective and objective experiences about a subject or others. Phenomenological researches evaluate daily lives and see them as a sources of information, enable others to learn themselves, and allow people to analyze how an event develops in everyday life. These researches also help researches to gain basic perspectives for evaluating events (Morrisey & Higgs, 2006). Moreover, these kinds of researches search for answers to how individuals experience a situation (Van Manen, 2014;Moustakas, 1994). Furthermore, phenomenological researches borrow individuals' experiences to define and interpret them (Jasper, 1994;Miller, 2003).

Study Group
The participants of the current research consisted of 15 educational administrators determined by using criteria sampling technique. Creswell (2017) recommends that if the number of individuals experiencing the phenomenon is very high, it is easier to select the participants by using criteria sampling technique. In phenomenological researches, the number of participants is important in the selection of participants. For this reason, 15 educational administrators who are working in provincial and district national education directorates were selected with criterion sampling method. The number of participants may vary depending on the phenomenon studied and Creswell (2017) states that the size of the group can vary between 3 and 15 people.

Data collection and analysis
The data of this study were collected with a semi structured interview technique, which allows to obtain in-depth interviews. In-depth interview is defined as a qualitative interview technique that can be developed with a specific list of questions. These questions aims to get insights of the participant's story. Semi-structured interviews include both specific and openended questions (Merriam, 2009). In this method, the participants can explain their opinions freely around particular topics. For gathering the data, first of all, in an e-mail, a lot of administrators were informed about the purpose of the study, and they were asked if they wanted to take part in this research voluntarily or not. In this respect, 15 administrators responded the e-mail and stated that they volunteered in participating in the research. Secondly, the participant administrators were consented after being assured of the confidentiality of the data to be gathered from them. They were promised that their identities would be kept in secret and their names would not be mentioned in any part of the study or shared with anyone else.
Thirdly, an interview was planned on an agreed-upon day, and they were visited on that date.
The interviews were both recorded and noted with their permission and each took approximately 30-40 minutes.
The gathered data were analyzed with the content analysis technique. According to Mayring (2000) and Patton (2014) this kind of data analysis usually aims to analyze similar data on a particular subject and comment on it. This analysis was implemented in some steps.
First, the data were organized by revisiting each interviewer and listening to each recorded audiotape to provide the accuracy of the data. Each administrator's interview transcript was later analyzed according to the data analysis procedures. Bogdan and Biklen (2007) underlines that these kinds of procedures include development of coding categories, mechanical sorting of the data, and analysis of the data within each coding category. In this respect, each administrator's interview was coded separately. Here, emerging themes and repeated themes were grouped into coding categories in three steps as category definition, exemplification, and codification regulation. In this regard, the responds to each question were separated into meaningful categories, named, and coded. Then, the conceptualized statements were gathered.
At this stage, it was aimed to avoid from repetition. Finally, the defined results were described and related to each other. It was also targeted to establish a cause-effect relationship among the existing parts. The administrators' opinions were coded as A1, A2, A3, and A4.
The constant comparative approach was employed while organizing the data and data analysis process. This approach results in the saturation of categories and the emergence of theory, which may emerge through continual analysis and doubling back for more data collection and coding (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007;Glaser, 1992). By implementing this method, each set of obtained data were re-examined concerning key subjects, recurrent events, or activities. Each respondent's data were reanalyzed various times for confirming and contradicting statements until the data were organized into satisfactory categories and sub- codes to address the research question. For fulfilling the aforementioned purpose, primarily the following semi-structured questions were raised: • What is planning?
• What is educational planning?
• Have you ever received any training in educational planning?
• In your opinion, what are the problems with educational planning?
• What are benefits of education planning?

Results
The main purpose of the current research was to determine education administrators' views on their awareness of educational planning, purpose, benefits and problems they encounter with it. It was also aimed to find out if the administrators received education and training in educational planning. In this regard, some results were obtained. In this part, these results are presented below each main theme.

Participants' Awareness of Planning as a Management Process
Below this theme, the education administrators' awareness about planning as a management process are presented.

Participants' Views on the Purpose of Educational Planning
Below this theme, the participants' views on the purpose of educational planning are given.

Main theme Sub Themes Participant Code
Educational planning To As seen in Table 2, while some participants consider education planning as achieving the goals determined in education, some others accept it as ensuring the planned operation of schools in the region. In addition, some other administrators think that education planning aims to determine where to reach from the current position in education. In this regard, an administrator underlined, "We make some decisions to achieve our goals. First, we predict about the number of students to be graduated, new-comers, classroom needs, teaching staff needs before the term starts (A15)". Another administrator states, "We plan operations first. In this frame, we form a team to carry out these plans. This team makes a detailed plan of the region, obtains data, and determines the resources like human and other resources by analyzing expectations from teachers, students and parents. Then, academic plans are released (A4)". A principal claimed, "We determine where to reach at the plans provided by MoNE first. Then, we make our preparations for these goals (A11)." Overall, it can be said that administrators evaluate educational planning as an important tool to achieve goals. It can be evaluated that the main purpose of educational plans according to administrators is about goals, how to achieve them, and what operations to be conducted and act accordingly.

Participants' Views on Their Training Experience on Educational Planning
Below this theme, it was researched if educational administrators have received any education or training on educational planning. Here, their responses are presented. As can be seen in Table 3

Administrators' Views on the Problems Encountered in Education Planning
Below this theme, the administrators' opinions regarding the problems they encounter with educational planning are presented.

Main theme Sub Themes Participant Code
The problems encountered No prior preparations done before planning.
Generally conducted as a legal requirement.
Prepared by senior administrators instead of planning experts.
Future predictions are not made properly.
Difficult to find people to do the educational research.
Administrators don't have knowledge of educational planning.
Lack of coordination among schools The goals are not clear Central planning ignoring regional differences even within the city. As can be seen in Table 4, administrators encounter several problems while administering their schools. They consider that no prior preparations are made and plans are prepared by senior administrators who are not familiar with education planning. In this regard, an administrator uttered, "The administrators from the ministry prepare plans and unfortunately they are nor experts in educational planning. Therefore, there occurs a lot of revisions while implementing these plans (A2)." Another administrator stated, "It can be understood from the examples and results that planning is not taken seriously. For example, even classroom size cannot be predicted correctly (A6)." Some administrators said, "I don't think that educational planning is carried out in the way it should be. Unfortunately, educational plans are prepared as a paper work to be added on checklist (A12/A7)." Another administrator expressed, "If there were planning in the field of education, there would not be too many teacher candidates who are waiting to be appointed to their posts. Turkey needs approximately 140.000 teachers but there are more than 400.000 teacher candidates (A9)." It can be said that administrators face a lot of challenges with educational planning. It is claimed that education plans are not prepared effectively from the basic education to higher education. Educational plans usually prepared as paper work.

Administrators' views on the problems encountered in education planning
Below this theme, educational administrators' views on benefits of educational planning are presented. As displayed in Table 5, the participant administrators list a lot of benefits of educational planning. They consider that educational planning provides effective use of scarce resources, helps build needed infrastructures, distributes human resources effectively, and prevents waste of resources and service equality. It is considered that educational planning also clarifies goals and saves time. In this frame, two administrators responded, "We can use human and other resources better. Otherwise, there may be inequalities among institutions. Therefore, it prevents unnecessary expenditure and waste of resources (A2/A12)." Two administrators said, "Planning has a lot of benefits. For example, it helps building physical infrastructure according to student needs. By doing so, resources are distributed equally (A3/A9)." Another administrator noted, "By making educational plans, it is possible to save time (A15)." Two administrators also claimed, "Planning in education clarifies future goals and it is time saving as well (A10/A14)." All in all, all participant administrators of this sample defended the benefits of educational planning for both institutions and individuals. As can be understood from their opinions, administrators believe that planning in education can save resources, time and energy and brings productivity in the end.

Discussion
This study purposed to determine education administrators' views on their awareness of planning, and purpose of educational planning, problems they encounter with planning, their education and training experience about planning, and benefits of educational planning and in this regard a number of results were obtained.
One of the results reached though this study showed that administrators of this sample are aware of the importance of planning and their opinions generally focus on efficiency and allocating resources in a balanced way. It is considered that planning is clearly an essential management function in all schools, regardless of geographic location or grade levels served (Beach & Lindahl, 2000). Educational planning can help schools perform beyond the focus of a planning and cultivate the potential of all members of the organization to fulfil their roles (Hess, Johnson, & Reynolds, 2014;Wedell, 2009 (Tanner & Lackney, 2006). In addition, as investment on education and its planning contributes to better student achievement and economic growth, planning knowledge and experience should be a must for administrator candidates (Chau, 2003;Mau, 1995;Woodhall, Hernes & Beeby, 2004).
According to another result, administrators of this sample evaluate educational planning as an important tool to achieve organizational goals. They believe that educational plans purpose to realize the goals determined by the central government and meet individual needs.
It also aims to ensure planned operations of schools. It is asserted that operation plans should be in consistent with the general plans provided by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE).
Since educational plans also provide equal distribution of resources, educational plans are considered crucial for educational institutions.
A further result revealed that administrators encounter a lot of problems regarding educational planning. In this sense, first of all, the participants believe that most administrators who prepare educational plans are not qualified and expert in educational planning. Planning is a special field and requires expertise and those who prepare educational plans should have expertise or education in the field of planning and educational planning. According to Babaoglan (2015) planning is considered as a legal requirement and managerial practice rather than planning application to solve the school problems; moreover, education administrators do not believe in the importance of planning process, because they are not tightly implemented. In his study, Bayram (2009) reached a similar result. He found that administrators do not believe in the viability plans (Chang, 2008;and Stevenson, 2006).
Also, it was discovered that most administrators of this sample have received in-service training or education on educational planning. In this regard, some administrators received postgraduate education in educational administration and they received planning courses there.
Since they have knowledge about planning, it was found that they manage their schools better and they face fewer problems. It can be commented that they have mastered the concept of educational planning during their education there. However, seven administrators have no or little information about planning, which is a problem. In fact, as Earthman (2009) stated school administrators should know how they can plan educational facilities. The problem can be solved when education administrators are chosen among those who received education in the field of education administration or attended to an in-service training in planning. In addition, inexperienced administrators can be encouraged to participate in in-service trainings about educational planning. However, educational planning in Turkey is very cumbersome and never lets administrators have their own budget and prepare development plans (Lo, 2010;Psacharopoulos, 1995).
Regarding the benefits of educational planning, educational administrators of this sample emphasized the importance and listed numerous benefits of it. The participants stated that educational plans saves especially resources, time and energy and brings productivity in the end. Moreover, it has rational and economic benefits such as setting achievable targets and realizing them, ensuring educational work done.

Conclusion
As a result of the results obtained through this research, it can be concluded that although some administrators have poor knowledge about planning, they are aware the importance of planning. In addition, educational administrators, underlined numerous benefits of planning, which makes their administrative tasks work more smoothly. On the other hand, as some administrators have not received any training on educational planning, they encounter some problems while they are administrering their schools.
Therefore, by evaluating the conclusions in general, some implications can be made for decision-makers, practicioners and also future researchers.
• Administrators should be chosen among those who have education in educational administration.
• Administrators' professional development initiatives concerning planning should be encouraged.
• Educational plans should be prepared by planning experts and implemented strictly.
• Through a mixed-method study, qualitative and quantitative results can be compared.
• A study can be conducted in some other countries which show similar features regarding management and economic sitiations.