School leadership is an underutilised workforce lever
The two latest OECD reports on teachers and school leaders suggest that sustaining teachers depends on the conditions principals can create.
Andy Mison, President and Executive Director, Australian Secondary Principals’ Association
Two OECD reports released this year offer a clear view of Australia’s school workforce. Education at a Glance 2026 focuses on teacher shortages (OECD, 2026a). The Value of School Principals in TALIS 2024 examines what teachers value in their principals and what that means for schools and student progress(OECD, 2026b). The signal emerging is that school leadership is one of the strongest retention levers available to systems. That idea has received far less policy attention than recruitment of new teachers, as important as that is.
Shortages are concentrated, and conditions matter beyond pay
Education at a Glance confirms that shortages are widespread across OECD systems but concentrated in particular subjects, schools and regions. Unfilled vacancies sit below 4% of teaching positions in every participating system, yet the pressure falls hardest on secondary STEM subjects and on disadvantaged, rural and remote schools (OECD, 2026a). Though this is a familiar story in Australia, out-of-field teaching absorbs some of this pressure here. In 2024, almost half of secondary teachers (47%) taught some or all of their subjects out of field (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2026).
Australia has done some things well. Close to 17% of Australian lower secondary teachers are second-career entrants, double the OECD average of 8.4% and among the highest shares reported. The OECD cites the Commonwealth’s High Achieving Teachers Program, an employment-based pathway that lets career changers train while working in schools with workforce shortages, as a model (OECD, 2026a).
The report is clear that supply measures alone will not retain the workforce. Between 2018 and 2024, the share of secondary teachers working in schools where more than 10% of students have special education needs rose from 30% to 45% across the OECD, and reports of frequent classroom disruption also rose. Only 39% of teachers are satisfied with their salaries, while 68% are satisfied with their other employment conditions, and most still say the advantages of teaching outweigh the disadvantages. The OECD concludes that the attractiveness of the profession depends on more than salary (OECD, 2026a).
One finding is alarming, and indicative of the structural inequity that is an entrenched feature of the Australian education system. Drawing on PISA 2022, the OECD reports a 31 percentage point gap between Australian public and private schools in the share of students whose principals say teacher absenteeism hinders learning. That is one of the larger gaps across OECD countries (OECD, 2026a). Public schools manage the largest relief load, with all the complexity that entails.
Teachers stay where leadership is valued
The TALIS principals report measures ‘valued leadership’ through teachers’ perceptions of their principal’s instructional and relational leadership. Valued leadership is associated with higher teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction and wellbeing, and with a lower likelihood that teachers want to leave the profession (Australian Council for Educational Research [ACER], 2026).
Australian teachers rate their principals’ instructional leadership highly, at or above the OECD average. Nine in 10 teachers (90%) agree their principal fosters a sense of responsibility for students’ learning outcomes, 85% that their principal encourages teachers to collaborate on new teaching practices and 83% that their principal ensures teachers take responsibility for improving their professional skills (ACER, 2026; OECD, 2026c).
Instructional leadership is the dimension of leadership linked to student achievement (ACER, 2026), which makes this a clear strength of Australian schools. The OECD also names Australia as one of 6 systems where following teacher appraisal with a development plan is positively associated with instructional leadership (OECD, 2026b).
Relational practice is where Australian results are lower. Seventy per cent of Australian teachers agree their principal encourages all staff to have a say on important decisions, against an OECD average of 78% (OECD, 2026c), and 67% say their principal provides useful feedback, against 77% (OECD, 2025).
At the same time, 79% of Australian secondary principals report ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a lot’ of work stress, compared with 61% across the OECD. The main sources are staff absences, student behaviour, changing requirements from authorities and parent concerns (ACER, 2026).
The missing policy driver
The two reports highlight working conditions as a key policy factor. Education at a Glance shows that retention depends on day-to-day working conditions as well as pay. TALIS shows that principals shape those conditions more directly than anyone else in a teacher’s working life, and that the leadership teachers value is linked to their intention to stay.
The pressures driving principal stress are the same pressures that crowd out the practices teachers value. Only 45% of Australian principals reported observing classroom teaching often or very often in the previous year (ACER, 2026). A principal covering staff absences and responding to shifting system requirements has less time for observation, feedback and inclusive decision-making. The most likely explanation for the relational gap in the Australian data is limited time and capacity.
A synthesis by Grissom et al. (2021) found that effective school leadership adds nearly 3 months of learning a year for students, close to the effect of a highly effective teacher, and that strong principals improve teacher satisfaction and retention. The TALIS findings align with this evidence and should give systems a reason to test the link directly.
What this means for workforce policy
National effort on recruitment, initial teacher education and alternative pathways is necessary and is showing results. The National Teacher Workforce Action Plan also includes a priority on keeping the teachers we have. ASPA’s view is that this retention work should treat principal capacity as a workforce instrument in its own right. In practice, that means:
1. reducing the administrative and compliance load on principals, starting with the frequency of changing system requirements
2. funding relief and replacement capacity in public schools, so staff absences absorb less leadership time
3. reporting principal workload and stress alongside teacher attrition in national workforce data
4. treating structured support for principals, such as professional supervision and recovery leave, as retention policy for the whole school workforce.
5. Most importantly: engaging meaningfully with school leaders in the co-design of policies for implementation in schools
The OECD has supplied the comparative evidence. Future workforce discussions should ask a direct question: what do principals need to keep good teachers in the profession?
References
Australian Council for Educational Research. (2026, October 27). TALIS 2024: What makes an effective school principal? ACER News.
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2026). National trends: Teacher workforce – June 2026. https://www.aitsl.edu.au/research/australian-teacher-workforce-data/atwd-reports/national-trends-teacher-workforce-june-2026
Department of Education. (2022). National Teacher Workforce Action Plan. Australian Government. https://www.education.gov.au/teaching-and-school-leadership/resources/national-teacher-workforce-action-plan-publication
Grissom, J. A., Egalite, A. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021). How principals affect students and schools: A systematic synthesis of two decades of research. The Wallace Foundation. https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/how-principals-affect-students-and-schools-a-systematic-synthesis-of-two-decades-of-research.aspx
OECD. (2025). Results from TALIS 2024: Country notes: Australia. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/results-from-talis-2024-country-notes_e127f9e2-en/australia_75d1e7a1-en.html
OECD. (2026a). Education at a glance 2026: OECD indicators. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/b4968bbc-en
OECD. (2026b). The value of school principals in TALIS 2024. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/a2cdb777-en
OECD. (2026c). The value of school principals in TALIS 2024: Australia [Country note]. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-value-of-school-principals-in-talis-2024_8359283e-en/australia_061c6a19-en.html
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