Heavy workloads, lack of time and teacher shortages are driving school principals towards resignation and early retirement, a survey from the Australian Catholic University (ACU) found.
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Since 2019, the number of Australian school principals wanting to retire early or resign has tripled.
"Our school leaders are clearly overburdened and struggling, the question remains how long can they keep going like this?" ACU psychologist and co-lead investigator Professor Herb Marsh said.
"As researchers we look at trends, and the trends we see this year are stark - the scale and the rate has escalated quite rapidly in ways we didn't expect," ACU Investigator and former principal Dr Paul Kidson said.
"This survey went strongly in a direction we didn't anticipate and that is very concerning for us," he said.
In 2022, heavy workload and a lack of time to focus on core responsibilities of teaching and learning were the leading stressors for 2500 principals in ACU's annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing survey, to be released in full in March.
The national teacher shortage is a cause for concern among principals, the stressor was ranked third highest in 2022, up from the 12th position in 2021's survey results.
"Staff shortages are more pronounced in regional and rural areas," Dr Kidson told ACM.
"It is a drastic increase when you look at the whole picture," he said.
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The welfare of students is also a concern for principals; anxiety, school refusal, depression, stress, and self-harm are factors school leaders are conscious of affecting children.
"We are now seeing the cumulative impact of this on principals' health and wellbeing, and we are very concerned about the increasing steepness of those trends as they are heading in a very distressing direction," Dr Kidson said.
"This data shows serious dashboard warning lights flashing all over the place. These are warning signs that we have not seen so acutely before, and we have almost 2500 people saying the same thing," he said.
"Policy makers need to say acknowledge that this is more significant than we've given credit," Dr Kidson said.
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Anna Houlahan
Anna Houlahan reports on crime and social issues affecting regional and remote Australia in her role as national crime reporter at Australian Community Media (ACM). She was ACM’s Trainee of the Year in 2023 and, aside from reporting on crime, has travelled the country as a journalist for Explore Travel Magazine. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au
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