Introduction: Failure of Educational Change

Governments of developing countries typically initiate new educational policies, which demand large scale change and development practices in their educational system. However, most of these policy initiatives fall short of the promised outcomes or intended goals. In this paper it is argued that most of the policy formation and policy implementation practices are closely related to organizational change theory and practice. In that sense, organizational change literature provides a wide knowledge base for eliminating failure of educational policies.

One of the major concerns of educational change literature is related to the failure of change or change initiatives falling short of the intended outcomes. Several scholars provided several theoretical explanations for the failure of change initiatives. Fragmented and stage based implementation (Clegg & Walsh, 2004), static perception of organization (Orlikowski, 1996; Tsoukas & Chia, 2002), lack of flexibilityin change implementation (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Weick, 2000), initiating large-scale changes (Barnes, Camburn, Sanders and Sebeastian, 2010) have been some of the common criticisms forwarded towards the conception and implementation of change in organization. The frequently failing nature of planned change has been the core concern of educational change scholars as well. Like organization science scholars, Fullan (1993) indicated attempting accomplish a non-linear and complex phenomenon with a linear approach is a major cause failure in educational change. In another study, Fullan (2001) maintained similar arguments and asserted that problem of frequent and failing nature of top-down change interventions and stressed negative consequences of these change interventions on schools. Despite huge amount of financial and human sources devoted for change and development interventions, change plan and programs in education commonly share similar ends with those in business organizations. Besides, although the governments devote financial resources and political will backing educational change interventions, these interventions fail to produce the intended outcomes. Similar criticisms and concerns about planned change have been articulated by several other educational researchers as well (Fullan, 1996; 2000; Gallucci, 2008; Honig, 2008; Louis, 2008; Stein & Coburn, 2008).

Technology Integration as a Change Process and Technology Integration Policy in Turkey

Technology integration has been one of the core concerns of governments. Investing in technology has been a common policy practice aiming at boosting student outcomes (Mims et al., 2006; Pamuk et al., 2013). However, integrating technology to instructional and administrative domains of the schools requires extensive financial resources, which do not guarantee a clear and direct contribution to student outcomes. Like other countries, Turkey has initiated several attempts to integrate technology to its education system. In the last attempt, FATIH Project, an acronym of Movement to Increase Opportunities and Improve Technology (in Turkish, Fırsatları Artırma ve Teknolojiyi İyileştirme Hareketi) was designed by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) with the aim of making information and communication technology the main tool of the education system for both teachers and students. When launched in 2012, the government expressed its will to invest around 8 billion dollars for developing the hardware needed for instructional technologies. The project was based on the Strategy of Knowledge-Based Society (2010-2014) published by the State Planning Organization and the Strategic Plan of the MoNE.

Despite extensive planning, financial resources and governmental will FATIH project has always been at the center of political debates and scholarly investigations. According to some scholars only 10% of the project was completed by the year 2015. Both politicians and scholars admit the failure of the project in attaining its targeted goals. Theorizing on the literature on failure of organizational change this study aims to reveal structural, cultural, human resources and political factors behind the failure of the project.

Barnes, C. A., Camburn, E., Sanders, B. R., & Sebastian, J. (2010). Developing instructional leaders: Using mixed methods to explore the black box of planned change in principals' professional practice. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(2) 241–279. doi:10.1177/1094670510361748 Brown, S. L., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (1997). The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-paced evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42(1), 1-34. ERG (Eğitim Reformu Girişimi). (2013). Fatih projesi eğitimde dönüşüm için fırsat olabilir mi? Politika analizi ve önerileri. Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Fullan, M. (2000). The three stories of education reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(8), 581–584. Fullan, M. G. (1996). Turning systematic thinking on its head. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(6), 420-423. Gallucci, C. (2008). Districtwide instructional reform: Using sociocultural theory to link professional learning to organizational support. American Journal of Education, 114, 541–581. doi:10.1086/589314 Güven, İ. (2012). The 4+ 4+ 4 school reform bill and the FATIH Project: Is it a reform. Elementary Education Online, 11(3), 556-577. Honig, M. I. (2008). District central offices as learning organizations: How sociocultural and organizational learning theories elaborate district central office administrators' participation in teaching and learning improvement efforts. American Journal of Education, 114(4), 627–664. doi:10.1086/589317 Karadeniz, Ş., & Vatanartıran, S. (2015). Sınıf Öğretmenlerinin Teknolojik Pedagojik Alan Bilgilerinin İncelenmesi. İlköğretim Online, 14(3). Karataş, i. H., & Sözcü, Ö. F. (2013). Okul yöneticilerinin fatih projesine ilişkin farkindaliklari, tutumlari, ve beklentileri: bir durum analizi. Elektronik Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 47(47). Louis, K. S. (2008). Learning to support improvement: Next steps for research on district practice. American Journal of Education, 114(4), 681–689. doi:10.1086/589320 Orlikowski, W. J. (1996). Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective. Information Systems Research, 7(1), 63-92. Pamuk, S., Çakır, R., Ergun, M., Yılmaz, H. B., & Ayas, C. (2013). The use of tablet PC and interactive board from the perspectives of teachers and students: Evaluation of the FATİH Project. Educational Science: Theory and Practice, 13(3), 1815-1822. Stein, M. K., & Coburn, C. E. (2008). Architectures of learning: A comparative analysis of two urban school districts. American Journal of Education, 114, 583–626. doi:10.1086/589315 Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567-582. Weick, K. E. (2000). Emergent change as a universal in organizations. In M. Beer, & N. Nohria (Eds.), Breaking the code of change (pp. 223-241). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.