ABSTRACT
Living and teaching in rural regions of Turkey is not an easy task due to social, economic, cultural, and regional difficulties. As such, the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) implemented a series of regulations to persuade or even prevent teachers located in rural areas, especially in Eastern Turkey, from relocating. For instance, newly appointed teachers must work for a certain number of years in rural areas ( MoNE, 2018 ). Even though there is a national curriculum that aims to provide the same quality of education to students across Turkey, due to regional problems this is not always the case. Some of the areas where teachers live are remote and neither they nor the students have access to many facilities. Our research investigates the challenges from the teachers' perspectives that early childhood and primary education teachers and students experience. We draw on critical education theorists such as Michael Apple and Stephen Ball to analyse related issues of privatization of education and class inequalities as neoliberal policies and the privatization of public education have been leading to regional differences in equity and economic security. Phenomenological analysis was utilized to analyse data from interviews in which teachers reflected on their experiences in rural schools. The findings revealed that some of the difficulties that teachers encountered in rural areas could be traced back to teacher education programmes. Other challenges teachers encountered were due to the nature of rural settings, such as poverty and teacher burnout.
