Principal vacancies in SA public schools struggling to attract applications

HIGH school principal positions in SA are attracting an average of just four applicants per job, as the public system braces for an unusually high turnover in leadership spots.

principal at Eastern Fleurieu School

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SOUTH Australian principal positions are attracting an average of just four applicants as the public system braces for an unusually high turnover of high school leaders, with one leading educator blaming a culture of negativity for the lack of interest.

Crippling workloads are also causing potential leaders to shy away from applying for vacancies, while current principals are opting not to put their hands up for even the plum jobs at prestigious inner city high schools.

Eastern Fleurieu School principal Trevor Fletcher, who has held senior bureaucratic roles in the eastern states, said too many principals were “absent landlords or landladies” spending too much time at conferences or “locked in their office reacting to the latest crisis ” instead of interacting with students, staff and parents.

Mr Fletcher, a board member of both the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership and Australian College of Educators, said it was a “lingering and disturbing urban myth” that there were not enough talented teachers capable of becoming principals.

“The truth is that in schools where the prevailing culture is lacking in encouragement and belief, cynical and focused on people surviving rather than thriving, there is not surprisingly little interest in school leadership roles,” he said.

Mr Fletcher said the imminent retirement of many principals and the “concerning decline” in interest in vacancies was a national problem, and more schools needed to become incubators of leaders. He said his own school had at least 25 staff “very interested in and most capable” of becoming principals.

SA Secondary Principals Association president Peter Mader expected about 20 high school principals to retire this year, compared to around 8 in a normal year.

Escalating workloads and a “perceived lack of support” from the Education Department to meet the challenges of the job were deterrents, he said.

“If you talked to SASPA a decade ago, and said there will come a time that the Norwood Morialta High principalship will be advertised not once but twice without being filled, they would have laughed you out of the room,” he said.

Public schools have averaged four applicants per vacancy over the past five years.

SA Primary Principals Association president Pam Kent said it was hard for principals to be “accessible and visible” as the role had morphed from educational leadership to administrative management with “frequent mandatory meetings away from their schools”.

“(They) are the ones who deal daily with complaining parents, student behaviour, counselling, facilities issues, data analysis, staffing issues, industrial regulations, critical incidents and everything else that causes principals’ inaccessibility,” she said.

The Education Department said aspiring and current school leaders were offered a range of training options, with close to 300 undertaking or having completed courses including a Graduate Diploma of Strategic Leadership.

Ms Kent said the department was also developing a program for retired or current principals to mentor new ones.