Roles of School Principals in the Distance Education Program

Abstract

The Covid 19 pandemic period has affected all areas of life, as well as significantly in the field of education. The concept of distance education has quickly entered our lives. This method of education, like many other countries, is unprepared in our country, especially educational institutions, due to inadequate infrastructure. The internet access demand of all education stakeholders has caused some disruptions. The demand for access to technological devices has increased, and the inadequacy of existing technological devices has become visible.

In the past, school administration focused solely on organizing the school, defining the school's vision, and performing administrative duties simply by enforcing the mission and rules. In this process, school administrators were defined as administrative leaders in the 1950s and human resources managers in the 1970s. After the 1980s, administrators were seen as school improvement, change and instructional leaders. After the 2000s, it has become important for them to have technological, transformational and collaborative leadership roles.

It is also known that administrators working in educational institutions experienced problems that would affect education due to these deficiencies during the pandemic period. In order to overcome this problem, it is necessary for school administrators to have technological, transformational, facilitative and collaborative leadership in addition to their educational leadership.

Administrators working in educational institutions have required roles such as Program Development, Technology Management, Instructional Design, Student Monitoring and Evaluation, Communication and Motivation, Data Analysis, Policy and Compliance, Educator Development, along with distance education.