Schools face leadership crisis over next five years

Nearly half of new primary school principals intend to leave their role in the next five years, a new survey by NZEI Te Riu Roa has found.

The findings of a Principal Sentiment Snapshot survey are being released at the union’s Educational Leadership Crisis Summit being held today.

“Principals find their work hugely rewarding. It’s a profession which attracts people who are incredibly invested in the education and wellbeing of tamariki,’ says NZEI Te Riu Roa president Mark Potter, who is a former principal of Berhampore School.

“But it’s clear that New Zealand has an imminent problem with a shortage of school leadership. Even new leaders in the profession are facing burn out and ultimately, it’s the children who will suffer if we can’t attract people to the role and retain them.“

Mr Potter said that it was crucial that principals received more support in their roles.

“Without this, the profession is unsustainable.”

Principals ranked the top three issues that would make the biggest positive difference to the role as more teaching staff, more management staffing, and increased access to specialists for children with additional needs.

The Educational Leadership Crisis Summit in Wellington today will be attended by Education Minister Jan Tinetti and principal leaders from across the country.

The Crisis Summit will be focusing on solutions to address recruitment and retention issues to make sure principalship is a sustainable role.

ENDS

Key points from the Principal Sentiment Snapshot Survey:

Nearly half (47%) of the respondents who are new principals – those in their first or second year in the role – said that they intend to leave the role within the next five years.
None of the 629 principals who responded said they felt well supported in the role, while more than 91% said they felt ‘not particularly well’ or ‘poorly’ supported. Only 9% felt the supports in place were about right.

Only 0.6% of respondents said that they find the demands of their role manageable and have all the staffing and resourcing that they need to meet the needs and aspirations of ākonga in their school/kura.

79% said that the demands of their role were ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’ to manage with the staffing and resourcing available. This was much higher for U1 and U2 school principals; 88% of them said the demands of their role were ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’ to manage with the staffing and resourcing available.

93% of survey respondents said that the demands of the role had increased in the past 10 years (or since their first principal role if less than this), while 67% said that demands had increased ‘very significantly’.

The survey received 629 responses, representing a 1/3rd (32.4%) of principals in the primary sector, covering U1 to U10 schools.