Stakeholders’ opinions on “let the schools become life” project in scope of lifelong learning activities

The objective of this study is to find out the opinions of school administrators, teachers, staff, benefiting students and parents and other stakeholders of “Let the Schools Become Life” project being carried out in order to reveal the effectiveness and efficiency of the project. Data in this qualitative research was gathered by purposive convenience sampling from a school principal, a deputy principal, two teachers, a municipality officer, three parents and two students by using a semi structured interview. The data gathered was analyzed by content analysis. All the data gathered was coded and various dimensions and appropriate themes were recorded. It was concluded that the stakeholders were satisfied with the project in general, despite the problems faced like physical and material insufficiencies, problems caused by uncertainties in job and duty, which resulted in further problems in planning and coordination, prevented the project from running smoothly.


INTRODUCTION
Education is defined as the process of creating intended changes on an individual's behavior by the means of his/her own life and is a lifelong process (Ertürk, 1994). This process starts right after the birth, provided by the family and gradually widens up in the environment the child grows in until he/she starts to school, which then becomes formal education. Non-formal education is defined as the education type which serves the education needs that cannot be met by formal education programs and is planned for individual or social development and open to individuals from all ages (Karakütük, 1990). Formal and non-formal education is understood to be complementing each other which together promote one of the main principles of Turkish education system, continuity. Education in Turkey is not limited to schools or pre-defined programs, but spread to the entire life, and may vary in layout in order to meet changing necessities. Lifelong learning is sometimes used interchangeably with adult education and continuing education. Aksoy (2008, p.35) defines lifelong learning as identifying individuals' areas of interest with an individual, social, cultural, economic and employment related approach and certifying any formal or non-formal education and learning from life activities and learning outcomes of these activities that the individual has attended in order to develop his/her knowledge, ability, attitude or behavior. Friessen and Anderson (2004) say lifelong learning covers any kind of learning from non-formal to classified-by-age formal education, obtained either by planned and intentional or random/coincidental processes, and all kind of socially compulsory or optional knowledge, while Candy (2003) defines it as a process which enriches and strengthens the knowledge, values, masteries and understanding and encourages their usage. Lifelong learning was first time presented in an article by Paul Lengrand in 1970 as a key concept on restructuring education which was presented at UNESCO Conference named as "Introduction to lifelong learning". Lifelong learning then has become a UNESCO policy in 1970's (Friessen and Anderson, 2004). Later in 1972, International Commission on the Development of Education issued the document "Learning to be", which emphasized on education as a lifelong activity in order to prepare the individuals to a yet non existing society through formal and non-formal channels. In 1996, UNESCO has stated the objectives of lifelong learning and European Union have announced 1996 as Lifelong Learning Year (EURYDICE European Unit, 2000:9;UNESCO World Report, 2005: 76).
European Union's Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig programs used to be in action in Turkey, as well as ongoing Erasmus+ program. These programs bring new opportunities in mobility for learning and exchange of knowledge and experience for qualified European Union citizens (http://www.ua.gov.tr). One of the projects on lifelong learning in Turkey is called "Let The Schools Become Life" which is being run by Ministry of Education General Directorate of Lifelong Learning (http://okullarhayatolsun.meb.gov.tr). The main objective of this project is to open up the schools to the parents and local people in order to turn them into lifelong centers and 'secure areas to live' that give opportunities in sports and arts activities to the students and especially to the adults (http://hbogm.meb.gov.tr). The project has started by a trilateral protocol signed between Ministry of Education, Ministry of Forest and Waterworks and Turkish Association of Municipalities on December 13, 2011, while duty of coordination was given to Ministry of Education General Directorate of Life Long Learning (http://okullarhayatolsun.meb.gov.tr) The website of the project prepared by the Ministry of Education explains the rationale of the project as to use scarce resources more effectively, to increase school facility utilization which is as low as 30% of the total day time, to increase utilization of present educational resources and facilities by the families and public, to decrease the problems caused by the lack of playground and sports areas for the children and youngsters, to protect youngsters and children from violence and harmful habits by utilizing the schools as secure areas, to meet the increasing demand to education and lifelong learning services in the information society, to overcome high construction, maintenance and other costs to provide these services from scratch, to minimize the problems caused by the lack of areas with similar capacity to serve as learning, entertainment and Karataş 373 recreational activities in neighborhoods especially in metropolitans, and to fulfill municipalities' responsibilities to provide education, healthcare and sports activities as well as campaigning against bad habits as a consequence of economically, socially and physically responsible understanding of municipality administration and necessity of municipal services as a requirement of locality principle (http://hbogm.meb.gov.tr). This project allows social, cultural, arts, sports and vocational courses and activities such as movie shows, playground and swimming pool utilization, fairs, shows, concerts, conferences, celebrations, panels, exhibitions, seminars, publicity events, theatrical shows, tournaments, contests, ceremonies and drills to be undertaken more conveniently. Some of the courses given under this project are literacy, English, Arabic, family education, folklore, musical instruments, applied acting, marbling, photography, painting, vocational computer applications, apiculture, carpet texturing, property dealing, cooking, web design and babysitting. Some of the sports courses given are chess, aerobics, pilates, table tennis, athletics, basketball, football, badminton, volleyball, swimming, handball, taekwondo, wrestling and karate. This project also houses Z-libraries, which provide internet access and basic books. Zlibraries are kept open until 8 to 9 pm in order to provide more service to those in need. Reading hours, reading and writing skills, mind games and Turkish and literature classes for adults are some of the activities held in these libraries. Voluntary parents can keep them open in order to let the students prepare and print their homework (MEB, 2013).
After a short study on the general objectives of the project, it could be predicted that communication and cooperation between the local people, school and local administration would increase, while the parents and local people would have wider opportunities in using their spare times and self-development. This project also proves that the schools are good for not only formal education, but also for lifelong learning too.
This research intends to identify the opinions of stakeholders in "Let the Schools Become Life" project by searching the answers of the following questions: 1. What are the opinions of the school administrators, teachers and municipality officers who carry out the "Let the Schools Become Life" project about the project? 2. What are the opinions of the benefiting individuals (students, parents, and local people) about the project?

Research model
The study is undertaken with descriptive analysis; therefore qualitative method and phenomenology pattern is used for a broader description (Karasar, 2009). Therefore, data was gathered through semi structured interview. The study group was chosen

Variable
Code Duration of professional service from the stakeholders of a participating school in Antalya's Kemer district. Convenience sampling was used as a purposive sampling method. Therefore sampling consists of a school principal, a deputy principal, two teachers, two parents, two municipality staff (a librarian/IT room staff and a security guard) and two students, totaling 10. The participants according to interview time are coded as Y1 and Y2 for school administrators, O1 and O2 for teachers, V1 and V2 for parents, B1 and B2 for municipality officers and K1 and K2 for students (Kuş, 2007;Mason 2002;Patton, 1990;Rubin and Rubin, 1995;Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2006).

Data gathering process
Interview: The questions were prepared by utilizing the literature and have been inspected by an expert. The questions have been pre-applied to a non-participating teacher, an administrator and a parent in order to collect feedback and finalize the questions. The semi-structured interview consists of ten questions related with the project, its effectiveness and its positive and negative aspects. Application: At first, the objectives of the study has been explained to the potential interviwers. The ones who are willing to take part in this study (school administrators, teachers, parents and students) have been choosen from volunteers. Interviews were carried out face to face and the sessions were tape recorded. In addition to this, the researcher took notes simultaneously. The interviews have taken around 30 to 50 min each and have been held in December 2013 and January 2014 at administrators' offices or in a suitable classroom at the participating school. Data analysis: Qualitative data obtained from the interviews have been taken into content analysis which consists of coding, theme finding and organizing (Balcı, 2004;Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2005). Sound records have been transcribed. After multiple reading of the transcripts, several dimensions which fit to the objective of the study have been found, which lead to some appropriate themes. Another researcher has re-transcribed the interview for increased reliability, as reliability and validity are crucial for objectiveness of a qualitative research (Morse et al., 2002). As both coding matched in great amount, it was concluded that coding was done reliably.

Findings
Findings and comments on these findings on stakeholders' opinions on "let the schools become life" project at a participating school. Ten stakeholders have participated in the study. These stakeholders are shown as Y1 and Y2 for administrators, O1 and O2 for teachers, V1 and V2 for parents, B1 and B2 for municipality officers and K1 and K2 for students with respect to their interviews.

Demographic properties of the Stakeholders
Age, gender, marital status, last graduated degree, professional experience, administrative experience, position, staff status and class of the participants are given in Table 1. As seen in the table, majority of the participants are under age 42. Marital status and gender of the participants are rather evenly distributed. Three administrators have associate degree, while two of them have bachelor's degree. Most of the administrators and teachers in the project have 20 years or more experience. Although most of them have permanent positions, some of them are temporarily appointed. The study has been grouped into two as project undertakers, that is administrators, teachers and municipality officer and beneficiaries, which is students and parents. Table 2 shows the themes extracted from the opinions of the project undertakers.
As given in the  Table 3 shows the opinions on extracted themes about the project.
As seen in

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
This study is important as it reveals the opinions of stakeholders of "Let the schools become life" project carried out by Turkish Ministry of Education, while there is no study about the subject yet. It is important to find out the opinions of the participants and take necessary precautions in this sort of projects (Ceken, 2011;Kurt et al., 2013). This study has revealed that there are problems about school administrators staying at school late but not being compensated and not having any regulation addressing this problem. Although, the teachers are paid for their extra courses, the study has revealed that they do not want to stay late at school. It is also revealed that the municipality staff assigned in the project are having problems because of uncertainties in duties and authorities. Process of combining information technologies with education media is important. Obstacles in front of this process are increasing as well as the projects to overcome them in Turkey (Sezer, 2011), one of these projects developed for this objective is "let the schools become life" project. Benefiting students and parents of this project have stated that they thought facilities needed to be broadened but ability to utilize technological infrastructure is satisfactory.
Although, there are problems like staying at school late and inability to utilize some facilities at school, all project undertakers have stated advantageous sides of the project like seminars, courses and social activities. Besides, the school library being open until late night has been seen as a positive side, although library content needs to be updated according to the project (Torun, 2003). All stakeholders agree that the courses should be kept free and there are problems in planning and programming of the project.
Some of the project undertakers have stated that they are willing to quit the project if possible because of the problems they have been facing. Although, there are not detailed studies about the project yet, it is meaningful to see some school administrators to quit the project in the evaluation meetings. Therefore, there are lacks in terms of education administration, auditing and planning which causes administrators and other stakeholders to benefit from the project poorly.
Themes of aids to the project partially fulfilling the necessities and uncertainties in duties and authorities are spoken of by majority of the administrators. Similar problems were revealed in Ceken's (2011) study about Fatih Project too. Stakeholders who are appointed by the municipality face problems because of not having enough knowledge about the school system.
Free of charge attendance to the courses, having school open until late night, access to facilities like computers, library and internet have been stated by all beneficiaries. But the teachers are not willing to take part because of no or very low payment for evening courses. Besides uncertainty about which administrator(s) will stay at school and take responsibility for evening and weekend courses cause unrest within the administrators. There is no extra payment for the administrator attending the project for the time being, which causes them to perceive the project as overtime, forced labor and work overload.
Most beneficiaries perceive having a common activity with their families at school positively. Moreover, most of the parents have difficulties on helping their children's homework and even cannot understand some of them (Güven, 2008;Gelbal and Kellecioğlu, 2007;Demir, 2008). Evening and weekend accessibility to school and ability to ask to the teachers are perceived positively by all of the parents and local people. This accessibility is crucial especially for the parents who do not have computers, internet or printers at their homes (Hersan, 2008). However, a few parents have stated that they are aware of incompetency in terms of planning and coordination.
As there has not been any consideration on the attenders' opinions on course planning, some of the beneficiaries request to have courses that fit with geographical conditions of the location. For example, cooking assistance, tourist guidance and driving are some of the requested courses. Courses which do not meet demand and needs cause economic loss. Basic courses like literacy and computer are being opened nearly everywhere. Therefore, taking local needs and demand into consideration in course planning would be more appropriate in terms of education planning and economics.