IPPN

Last Updated: Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:00

Benchmarking - How Principal's feel about it

In advance of their annual conference in Killarney starting tomorrow, school principals were surveyed on the state of education in our primary schools. Over 900 primary principals responded. "At 28% of 3,200 principals in the country, this is a very high number of responses and gives a reliable insight from school leaders into what's happening on the ground in our schools." said Larry Fleming, President of the Irish Primary Principal's Network.

The following questions were put on the recent Benchmarking results:

Principals, relative to other public servants, did well this time from benchmarking
Agree 40.6% No Opinion 15% Disagree 44.3%

I am satisfied with the outcome of the Benchmarking process
Agree 19.2% No Opinion 13.1% Disagree 67.7%

The fairest outcome of Benchmarking was that Teaching Principals were prioritised
Agree 70.6% No Opinion 12.3% Disagree 17.1%

I am familiar with IPPN's document 'Investing in School Leadership'
Yes 44.7% Somewhat 48.4% No 7.0%

In your opinion, who had the most effective influence on the outcome of Benchmarking for Principals?
Management Bodies 3.4%
INTO 25.1%
IPPN 60.9%
DES 10.6%

The manner in which the Public Service Benchmarking Body (PSBB) dealt with Principals' and Deputy Principals' has evoked mixed reactions. The IPPN Executive considered the report and has stated as follows:

Positives
Since 2005, IPPN worked relentlessly to ensure Principals issues were to the fore and that a professionally researched coherent submission was made on behalf of Primary Principals to the PSBB. Regrettably, the goal of a separate salary scale for Principals most wait for another day but some gains have been made.

The persistent lobbing by IPPN to address the recruitment and retention crisis in Principalship proved to be a critical factor as it was a key criterion used by the PSBB in prioritising awards.

Primary Principal Teachers were the only grade to receive any increase in the entire education sector. It is quite remarkable that for the first time ever, the Primary Principal has been singled out for special attention.

Great credit goes to all Principals who assisted with the research for IPPN's Investing in School Leadership and to everyone who made personal submissions of this document to the PSBB on behalf of Primary Principals. Other research such as Quality Leadership "Æ Quality Learning, New Horizons for Teaching Principals & Smaller Schools and the HayGroup Report on the Role of the Primary Principal, were also considered by the PSBB.

Only a few Public Service grades received increases of any description and 30% of the total value of the increases recommended to Public Servants will go to Primary Principals.

Negatives
Regrettably the PSBB report did not place Principal Teachers on a separate salary scale as per IPPN's research document - Investing in School Leadership. In the absence of a separate salary scale, increases to Principals' allowances can only have minimum impact on one's overall salary.

The practice of Principals being paid as teachers with an allowance for principalship can not effectively establish a sufficient differential between Principal, Deputy Principal, Assistant Principal, Special Duties Teacher and Teacher. Without such differentials in pay teachers will be disincentivised from applying for principalship.

This failure to place Principal Teachers on a separate scale like every other managerial grade in the Public Service, does nothing to address the ongoing recruitment and retention crisis. Deputy Principals of larger schools continue to be paid more than Teaching Principals - this is both profoundly unjust and one of the main reasons why there is a severe shortage of applicants for Principalship.

Rewarding Principals with a Teacher's salary plus a Principal's allowance, will always penalise Teaching Principals as their 'Principal Pay' is linked to school size and therefore a small allowance. If Principals of smaller schools were paid a Principal's salary with an additional allowance for their teaching role the complexity and challenge that Teaching Principals encountered daily, would be reflected by their salary.

The PSBB report stated that "The outcome of the job evaluation exercise did not support parity between Primary and Post-Primary Principals as the jobs of Principals of Post-Primary schools were found to be more demanding than those at Primary level."

This is a most objectionable comment for the most obvious of reasons.

Parity with Second Level Principals has not been established by the PSBB report. Primary Principals require a greater number of teachers than Second Level Principals in order to receive the same allowance.

The PSBB report failed to take account of the significant numbers of non-teaching staff managed by Principals.

Principals of large primary schools have been unfairly discriminated against when compared to their Second Level counterparts. Second Level Schools have allowance bands to cater for up to 60+ teachers where as the maximum allowance band at primary level is 36+.

The Bottom Line
The table below shows the current salary reward for principals and the recommended increases as per the report of the Public Service Benchmarking Body (PSBB). The table cannot show every individual scenario but is based on the highest point on the common basic scale with an Honours Degree (principals may hold a pass degree, honours degree, masters degree or a doctorate). The last column demonstrates the actual percentage increase in terms of overall salary.

Ends