Preparing the next generation of educational leaders

For decades, educational leaders and policy makers, both in Australia and internationally, have expressed concern about the shortage of qualified and high-quality teachers in all sectors of schools. In recent years, these concerns have expanded to include teachers interested in pursuing school leadership roles such as principal or deputy principal and the availability of quality candidates for principal positions. Researchers have identified numerous barriers teachers faced when considering moving into leadership. Within Catholic education in Australia, candidates for leadership encountered further restraints, such as the requirement to be a practicing Catholic. Based on previous research a range of methods have been proposed to prepare potential candidates to leadership, such as targeted professional development and mentoring. In undertaking this study, my aims were to investigate the effectiveness of mentoring programs being used within Catholic education systems in New South Wales, Australia. My research was designed to evaluate these programs against a range of standards of leadership from mentoring programs across the world. This investigation led to greater understanding of how and to what extent mentoring programs in NSW affected the career intentions of study participants and their perceptions of leadership. Findings from the study revealed little evidence of mentoring programs in Catholic systemic schools in NSW, and that programs that do exist are informal at best. Although participants indicated that the programs were effective, no statistical difference was found in preparedness for aspects of leadership between the mentoring group and the non-mentoring group in the study cohort. The data also indicated that identified mentoring programs had little to no impact on the participants’ perceptions of leadership roles or their career goals and decisions. Although mentoring programs for leadership preparation were regarded as potential professional development pathways, the informal nature of such programs impacted their ability to be effective in the development of potential school leaders. The implementation of a research-based, structured program for the development of Catholic school leaders could be a partial solution to the school leadership crisis facing Australia.