Emigration and Mentoring - a crisis is brewing

Once upon a time a teacher needed four years classroom experience before they would be appointed to a Head of Department position. Now that is down to two years. They needed six years before they could apply to become a Deputy, and seven years for a Principal's post. Ha ha. That's down to four, and some schools are appointing Deputies in their SECOND year of teaching. Yes - seriously - in Gauteng!

Today I have been through a set of thirty CVs of teachers with more than five years experience. Some of them come from very rural areas, and schools I have never heard of, but their English is good, and their work record looks to be stable. Yet some have taught for fifteen and twenty years and never been offered an HOD post. That means they are not in line for Deputy or Principal - although they might well be high quality people with leadership potential. There has been no mentoring, no training or assessment that can tell me if this person has leadership potential or not.

Among the heap of thirty were six people who are already Principals of schools that I have never heard of. Not one of them managed to "sell" themselves to me as an energetic innovative leader. They didn't say a thing about what they had achieved as Principal of their school in terms of the learning of the kids in their charge. But again, they might well be high quality people with leadership potential.

At present South Africa is loosing educated intelligent people from every population group to emigration, I have never had so many teachers on my database looking for jobs outside South Africa, and most of those who go do not intend to come back soon if at all. So we are loosing skills. But added to that, teaching is not a popular career choice anywhere in the Western world, and many of the graduates we have are not the strongest. We have a problem.

We have to fast track young leaders! We have to do it now. I know that schools are understaffed and over-stressed, I know that the best schools are the ones most likely to be targeted for criticism and protest, I know you are burgled monthly and it takes DAYS to sort out the paperwork, I sympathise, but we dare not make excuses if we seriously believe we need leaders for education in the next generation. If we do not act now I dread to think what the CVs I receive will look like in five years time. There will be no one ready to lead our schools! So we will turn them over to people who are not ready, and I leave the rest to your imagination. We are condemning our own children to poverty because we did not act!

I challenge schools not to spend more money but to sweat the assets we have in 2019

• Every Principal should take charge of the mentoring program in their school and make sure not only that it happens but that it is effective!
• Every Deputy should be mentoring three young teachers (one of whom might be an HOD)
• Every HOD should be mentoring one Subject Specialist and one Management Specialist within their own subject area
• Every teacher with three years teaching experience should be mentoring two new graduates!

I plead with you - look at the best practise mentoring programs (there are plenty on the Internet!) and take it seriously! The future of your school - no our nation - depends on what you do now.

State schools must take this seriously! The Education Companies will steal your leaders without turning a guilty hair. Unless State Schools train more leaders than they need they will not have enough! Independent Schools with any sense at all must realise that in the future your adverts wont turn up good candidates for your teaching vacancies! You need to train those candidates.

Start now. Plan from today. If we don't it's our children who are doomed.