Principal shortage ‘critical’
New Masters degree preparing leaders to fill expected shortfall left by retirements
A“critical” need for trained principals has spurred a programme to give school leaders key skills for the job. predicted shortage of principals, as sitting heads begin to retire in the next five years, coupled with the ongoing teacher shortage has fuelled the programme, which schools say is vital to ensure competent school leaders in the future.
The expected shortage of principals has been described as an “emergency” by Macleans College principal Byron Bentley.
A number of Macleans senior staff members are enrolled in the Masters in Secondary School Leadership, which is run through Victoria University.
“The average age of secondary school [principals] now is in the high 50s, so there’s a lot of retirements occurring and imminent,” he said.
“There’s going to be a dearth of senior leadership. It’s a bit of an emergency really, it’s like the teachers’ shortage.
“If the industry isn’t prepared, it will pay the price.”
The course was developed by Vic- toria University’s education and business schools after being approached by Bentley, former Auckland Grammar School principal John Morris, and former Onehunga High School principal Chris Saunders about three years ago.
It aims to provide hands-on training for aspiring principals — combining theory with practical experience shadowing principals in schools around the country.
The modern secondary school environment was highly complex, Bentley said, and nothing previously had provided enough practical training to prepare new principals for the role — including financial acumen, employment relations, management, and being “a teaching and learning leader”.
It was an issue that had been “too long ignored”, he said, and now “the need for trained leaders is [critical]”.
Between 50 and 70 principals were signed up to help out, and trainees would go into their schools to see how life as a principal really works.
Four of Macleans College’s teachers are taking the course — house leader and English teacher Thomas Murdoch, deputy principal and geography teacher Andrew Mackenzie, maths teacher Phil Goodyer, and house leader Murray Saunders — and all spoke enthusiastically about the experience it had given them.
It provided a solid framework and ensured a new principal was not going in “blind”, Saunders said.
Dr Brenda Service, post-graduate programme director at the Faculty of Education, Victoria University, said the course had proved successful, with four out of seven graduates already securing principal jobs, while two others had won principalships before finishing the course.
Fears over a lack of suitably qualified people applying for principal roles was being seen elsewhere, she said.
“In fact it’s a worldwide issue and there’s a lot of academic writing on allowing [principal training] to be adhoc, expecting people to have learned as they’ve gone through their former roles,” she said.