Empowering women teachers to step up to leadership roles

Fact; while most teaching staff are women, most senior leadership positions in schools are held by men.

Some of the reasons for that are women in teaching often report feeling stressed in their roles, lack a clear pathway for career advancement and tend to leave the profession before realising their full career potential.

The situation is not ideal so The National Excellence in School Leadership Institute (NESLI) is launching a new program to encourage women to stay the course and aim high, the NESLI Women’s Future Leaders Program which will develop critical leadership and well being skills.

The flexible online program focuses on improving resilience and well being and developing critical leadership, conflict management and networking skills. 

A recent study by Dr Sue Thompson shows that 26 per cent of women teachers report ‘a lot of stress’ in their roles, compared with 20 per cent of male teachers. The study also finds that teachers who report ‘a lot of stress’ are likely to leave the profession in the next five years. 

Dr Janet Smith, Program Director for NESLI said, “Ensuring that teachers are aware of a pathway to leadership in a school environment, inspiring them to pursue leadership and enabling them to be effective, confident school leaders is critical to the success of Australia’s schools.”

Word has got out about the stresses attached to teaching with courses failing to attract students which does not look well for the future supply of educators.  

Recent findings from the National Initial Teacher Education Pipeline: Australian Teacher Workforce Data Report 1 (The Pipeline Report) reveal that Australia is facing a critical lack of new students studying and completing teaching degrees at universities. Attrition rates for early career teachers (those in their first five years) are estimated to be around 50 per cent, according to the Australian Association for Research in Education.

“This research tells us that we are losing around half of our graduates before they can progress to middle and senior leadership roles in schools,” Dr Smith said.

Visit https://www.nesli.org/futureleaders.html for more information and to apply. 

Photo by Carlos Moral Reis from Pexels