Principals worried about supply and quality of teachers

A national survey of school principals has uncovered the biggest challenge facing the education system in the years ahead.

PRINCIPALS across the country are concerned about managing the quality, supply and capabilities of their teachers in the coming years, new research has found.

More than 150 principals across the country were asked their reflections on their school now and in five years’ time, in a new State of the Sector report released by education workforce research and analytics company PeopleBench.

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With an ageing staff population combined with large numbers of graduates lasting only a few years on the job, principals named teacher capability as the top workforce challenge not just today, but into the future.

In particular, principals had concerns over the quantity and quality of teachers for key subject areas, specifically maths, physical sciences and senior secondary teachers.

Almost 40 per cent of principals felt the quality of physical sciences teachers available in the labour market was not sufficient, and almost a third expressed similar concern about maths teachers.

PeopleBench’s chief research and insights officer Mike Hennessy said despite some of the challenges principals were faced with regards to managing their workforce, overall most were positive.

“The optimism of principals was quite strong, and they are quite confident in their ability to lead their school workforce and to execute their vision,” he said.

“What we did see was a bit of that optimism predicted to drop in the next five years – they a bit concerned about how they were going to meet those challenges.”

Queensland Secondary Principals Association​ president Mark Breckenridge said the findings were a fair assessment of the sector.

“Teacher supply and quality is a big issue, right across the state and certainly looking towards the future,” he said.

Mr Breckenridge said changing the community conversation around teaching was key to ensuring the profession remained attractive to school leaders.

The research also looked into what areas of the workforce had the most impact on the students themselves.

On this topic principals cited staff wellbeing, leadership style how many sick days teachers took as some of the biggest factors.

“What was also interesting was the diversity findings – while most (principals) said having a diverse workforce was important, the current state of the workforce doesn’t reflect that,” Mr Hennessy said.

Originally published as Principals worried about supply and quality of teachers