A Historical-Biographical Analysis of A Successful Educational Leader: İsmail Hakkı Tonguç

The purpose of this article was to make a historical-biographical analysis of İsmail Hakkı Tonguç, who was the General Director of Elementary and Early Childhood Education (İlk Tedrisat Umum Müdürü) in the Ministry of Education (Maarif Vekilliği) in Turkey between 1935-1946. Being a qualitative one, this research was designed as a document analysis research, which draws data on the archieve content memories, books, and current literature. İsmail Hakkı Tonguç was a historical successful educational leader who focused his efforts on providing equal educational opportunities and contributing the modernization process of Republic of Turkey. The basic premise of this research was to address the successful educational leadership of him from a historical perspective rather than centering him at the center of the debates on the Village Institutes. Following the content analysis, it was concluded that İsmail Hakkı Tonguç can be considered as both an intellectual educational leader of his age, and a man of the public who cared about his nation’s children. Through his educational leadership philosopy, İsmail Hakkı Tonguç added much to Turkish Education System through collaboration of other important figures, such as Hasan Ali Yücel. İsmail Hakkı Tonguç can be considered as paternalist, social justice, transformative, instructional, charismatic, visionary, moral/ethical, democratic, transactional and servant leader.