Principals say pay gap between top teachers and entry-level school leadership positions must be widened

THE pipeline for producing principals is “close to broken” and must be fixed by paying teachers more to start climbing the career ladder, school leaders say.

• Principal vacancies attract average of four applicants
• More than 10 schools to start Term 2 without a principal
• Both Adelaide city high schools have leadership vacancies

THE pipeline for producing principals is “close to broken” and must be fixed by paying teachers more to start climbing the career ladder, school leaders warn today.

The SA Secondary Principals Association says the pay gap between top teachers and entry-level subject or year-level co-ordinators, the first step towards becoming a principal, is so small that many don’t bother once they consider the extra workload.

Experienced teachers can earn $99,000, or even more if they are classified as “highly accomplished” or “lead” teachers (up to $113,000), while co-ordinator salaries range from $103,000 to $107,000.

In recent years schools have been lucky to attract a handful of applicants for principal positions, even high-profile ones.

SASPA president Peter Mader said the “minuscule” pay difference was a disincentive and must be a focus of upcoming enterprise bargaining.

“It’s not as if you are given much more time to complete these extra responsibilities either,” he said.

“(The system) is close to broken in terms of where we are going to get the next generation of leaders.

It’s time to fix it. If that happens what we would see over the next decade is getting some really high quality people moving into … positions to become the next generation of principals. So instead of getting two or three applicants we’d get 10 or 12.”

At least 14 public schools began the year without a permanent principal and there were 11 at the start of term 2.

And the State Government had to readvertise for someone to lead its $100 million flagship Adelaide Botanic High after the first round did not attract a suitable applicant.

SASPA is calling for lower teaching loads for leaders, for example for deputy principals to teach one class instead of two.

And it also wants regular teachers’ face-to-face time with students reduced from 21 to 20 hours a week, in line with Victoria, with the extra time to be used for “professional learning communities”.

They would be groups within a school, such as Year 8 teachers or maths teachers, who would work together on ways to improve teaching quality.

However, SASPA acknowledged such a move would require tens of millions of dollars to hire hundreds more teachers.

The Australian Education Union has already flagged its push for 300 extra high school teachers but for a different purpose, lowering class sizes.

An Education Department spokesman said: “The department is consulting with a range of stakeholders in order to propose a government bargaining agenda which will support us build a world class education and child development system.”