The professional development of teachers is the transformation and the learning process of their professional actions and thinking practice through the knowledge, skills, and emotional intelligence that they informally or formally, individually, or in a group experience, question, or acquire during their pre-service and in-service careers. There are many different professional development models for teachers. The “university-school partnership” model is one of the modern professional development models in Turkey. Individuals or organizations could be more effective than they work by themselves thanks to this kind of organizational partnership model which takes an increasing interest in the education sector (Catelli, Costello, and Padovano, 2000; Goodlad, 1988; Teitel, 1998).

University-school partnerships aim to establish a balance between theory and practice and increase communication and cooperation between education faculties and schools. This partnership could be designed in many ways. They can be small-scale and individual-oriented partnerships, as well as a tie with a university and a school. The reasons are mostly a necessity of experts for the professional development of teachers, or necessity to practice, obtain research sites or connect with future students in advance (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Day, 1998; Verbeke and Richards, 2001).

The foundation of the university-school partnerships concerning the professional development of teachers in Turkey is back to the documents which are the Reorganization of Teacher Training Programs in Education Faculties published by YÖK and the Faculty-School Partnership Guide published by The World Bank and the YÖK in 1998 (YÖK, 1998). The primary purpose of these arrangements was to bring together the theoretical knowledge and the practice by enabling student teachers to perform their teaching practices in their original environment. However, as seen in the process and in the Teacher Training and Education Faculties report (published by YÖK in 2007), the problems and deficiencies of teacher training and development continue in terms of MEB-YÖK collaborations (YÖK, 2007).

In this study, we aimed to examine the university-school partnership relation by referring to the experiences and opinions of the stakeholders. The research question of the study is like this:

What are the views and experiences of university-school partnership stakeholders about this partnership relation?

The examination of the university-school partnership relation would make the partnership context clearer and show how this kind of partnership could be better designed and implemented.

The research design was phenomenology to investigate and understand the university-school partnership relation in-depth and in detail. A total of 60 (sixty) participants were the stakeholders of a university-school partnership model in Istanbul. The participants were investigated under six sub-groups: teachers, students, school administrators, local education authorities, academics, student teachers, and parents. In this way, we aimed to reach all the stakeholder groups more homogeneously and conduct in-depth interviews. As the data collection tool of the study, we used a semi-structured interview form with open-ended questions for face-to-face interviews. NVIVO 11 Qualitative Analysis Program was used during the analysis process. Interview texts were deciphered by the researcher. They were read several times, and familiarity with the data was followed, in line with the phenomenology analysis method proposed by Moustakas (1994).

As a result of the analysis, the themes “communication, feelings towards the relationship, attitudes towards the relationship, disconnection, and parent participation” were reached. The participants stated that they could have communicated effectively, were well-intentioned and polite to each other, and they could actively use the means of communication in communication with each other. Stakeholders often had positive feelings towards the partnership, but there were also points where stakeholders felt negative. In addition, although the stakeholders mostly talked about positive attitudes, some participants fed negative attitudes towards the relationship and gave opinions on this issue. Student teachers, academics, teachers, and administrators of state secondary schools stated that they felt disconnected due to organizational reasons such as planning, lack of knowledge, workload, being a state or foundation school. The participants also indicated that their relationship was not strong due to personal reasons such as shyness and anxiety. Another issue that the stakeholders expressed about the relationship was parent participation. Parents stated that they were satisfied though initially concerned about the partnership activities. They overcame it by having more information in time. In line with these results, we listed our recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, and other researchers in the last part of the study.

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