Appreciation for “Deputy Principals”

EDITOR: We appreciate the work of the “Deputy Principals” who work tirelessly often without remuneration to ensure that their school runs efficiently. As operations manager for their plant, they are involved in every aspect of the school. Many schools do not have appointed deputies. Nevertheless, the work must be done. Some are more qualified and experienced than their immediate supervisors but were overlooked many times over when the position became open. If the system was fair and based on meritocracy they would have already taken their rightful place in the institution and commandeered it to heights it never reached before. So, they trudge on hoping for the best and that some of their ideas would be implemented.

As schools prepare to open, the challenges of making them ready for students usually multiply.

While every institution should begin with a full staff on the first day, over the years, it appears that October is the set time for new staff to arrive rather than September. In some countries, it is illegal to leave students unattended, but some principals direct that imaginary timetables be made with the hope of getting the appropriate teachers to cover those classes.

After a long vacation and a full week of planning, all staff should be in place, a timetable made, and students should be put to work from the first day of school. Instead, too many schools are in disarray without a working timetable. Teachers are often overloaded, saddled with too many periods, contrary to the agreement with the Teacher’s Union.

Some students, too, are saddled with too many subjects.While most can manage a maximum of 5 to 8 subjects, they are forced to do as many as 10 to 14.

Additionally, rather than focusing on teaching students what they need to learn, many are forced into programmes that are less beneficial to their career or educational path in which they are heading. It is the responsibility of the “Deputy Principal” along with the teachers to discern the direction in which students are heading and give them the assistance to get there.

This is a great work and no appreciation nor remuneration is too large for this task.

Moreover, beginning students are segregated in a manner that groups the well able students from those who are struggling without any research basis. In our society, people of varying abilities work together on various tasks. In schools this is modelled in classroom instructions called Cooperative Learning that encourages all students to depend on each other for the success of the group. If this is done well, students are made more responsible for their own learning and the learning of their colleagues and would depend less on the teacher. Thus, the budding physician and the budding auto mechanic would sit in the same Physics class gaining the foundation needed for their future careers.

Anthony G. Stewart, PhD