Complaint management in educational institutions: Examination of the reports of ombudsman institution

This study aims to explore complaints about education-training services made to the ombudsman institution. For this purpose, ombudsman decision reports were examined in terms of the subject or issue of complaints, the type of institution complained, the complaints profile and complaints years. This study was designed according to the document analysis method of the qualitative research design. The data of current study drived from the complaints made to the ombudsman institution regarding education-training services from 2013 to 2015. The data of current study analysed via document analysis method. In data analysis, codes and categories were developed in accordance with the content analysis method. The decisions are coded in accordance with the following variables: the subject and date of the complaint; the institution complained about, the type of the funding of the institution and the stakeholder type of the complainant. As a result of this research, Regarding the type of the institutions, this study observed that citizens filed complaints most frequently against universities. According to the subject of the complaint, it was found that complaints were more frequent in the subject of planning, implementation and evaluation of education, administrative activities and right to education. Findings of this study indicated that the group who complained more frequently about educational institutions was internal stakeholders. According to the type of financing method of educational institutions, complaints concentrated in public-funded institutions. According to their subjects, complaints concentrated in the planning, administration and evaluation of exams; and complaints were observed in higher frequency in the areas of scholarship, learning loan, discrimination on behalf of a certain group, graduation and certificate. When the results of the research are taken into consideration, arrangements for measurement and evaluation, scholarship and learning loan, graduation and registration processes can be made in educational institutions. In this context, cooperation strategies with the ombudsman institution should be improved. On the other hand, among the educational institutions the universities most frequently complained and they mostly complained by their internal stakeholders and these complaints are often about to the university activities. When all these situations are taken into consideration, the ombudsman offices, in other word the university ombudsman offices can be established within the university for effective management