Putting Bureaucratic Accountability into a Perspective in Terms of Academic Achievement

This research aims to understand the perceptions of a group of secondary school teachers and principals regarding the place of academic achievement within the bureaucratic accountability structure. The research focus is, from the educators' perspectives, to what extent the Ministry of National Education holds them and their schools accountable for academic achievement. The data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with a group of 30 teachers and school principals from seven secondary schools. The schools are distinguished by their distinctive features in the Turkish education system, which stands out with its bureaucratic character. The findings indicate that the accountability relationship between the upper hierarchical units of the country's education system and the schools is perceived to be quite weak or even uncertain in terms of academic achievement. The educators seem to think that there is no expectation of achievement and they rigorously criticize existing expectations. They claim that because their achievement status is not monitored, they do not encounter any intervention or sanction in cases of failure. The findings provide a critical perspective of the costs of bureaucratic accountability as well as a query on the ideal type of bureaucracy in practice.