An investigation of chief administrator turnover in international schools
Journal of Research in International Education
John Benson
University of Bath, UK
10(1) 87–103 April 2011
Abstract
This article explores chief administrator turnover in international schools. Quantitative and qualitative data
from the 83 chief administrators who participated in the study suggests that the average tenure of an
international school chief administrator is 3.7 years and that the main reason chief administrators leave
international schools is related to school boards, although career considerations are also regarded as
important. The two most common school board-related reasons given for leaving are regular changes in
board composition and micro-management.
Introduction
It is a well-established research finding that ‘leadership through chief administrators is the single most
important contributing factor in ... a school’s ... success or failure as an institution’ (Haywood, 2002: 175). A
chief administrator leads and supervises the daily operations of a school and, in doing so, ensures that the
policies of the school board are put into practice (Council of International Schools, 2003). Yet there is a
paucity of literature about issues related to chief administrators in the context of international schools.
This is the case regarding the two themes of this piece of work – the average tenure of international
school chief administrators and the reasons why they leave a post. Only one previous study has been
carried out, by David B. Hawley (1994, 1995), who examined them in a specific type of international school:
US-accredited overseas schools. These schools were originally established for dependants of US citizens
serving the interests of the US government abroad (US State Department, 2009). In addition to Hawley, one
other author – John Littleford – has undertaken noteworthy research in this area, although the majority of his
work revolves around chief administrators in US independent schools.
The lack of literature on chief administrator turnover in international schools means that ‘it is difficult to
evaluate the extent to which [Hawley’s study] describes a more widespread phenomenon’ (Cambridge,
2002: 164) and to assess if it may ‘represent faithfully other types of international schools ... which are not
US style’ (Blandford and Shaw, 2001: 25–26). The purposes of the current study are therefore twofold: (1) to
update Hawley’s (1994, 1995) study; and (2) to extend it beyond US-accredited overseas schools to
international schools more widely.
Hawley (1994, 1995) had a ready-made sample of US-accredited overseas schools for his study. There is
no ready-made sample of international schools available; nor is it possible ‘to give a precise figure at any
one time’ of how many international schools are in existence (Hayden, 2006: 14). Hayden and Thompson
(2009) estimate there to be between 2000 and 4000, while ISC Research places the figure for Englishmedium international schools at 5323 in 236 countries (ISC, 2009). As an additional complicating factor,
international schools have ‘no cohesive sense of unity’ (Bunnell, 2007: 352) and they ‘may or may not share
an underlying educational philosophy’ (Hayden and Thompson, 1995: 332). Furthermore, there is no
overarching international body or international system (Blaney, 1991; Thomas, 1996) to ensure that as many
as possible of these establishments ‘subscribe to recognizable standards of international education’
(Brummitt, 2007: 39). Instead, the proliferation of schools that ‘may describe themselves in some sense as
international’ (Matthews, 1988: 4) has been accompanied by a growing number of support agencies,
including eight accrediting agencies, 25 or so regional associations and thirteen recruitment organizations
(Bunnell, 2007).
International schools used mainly to be independent, non-profit, community-based, English-medium
schools offering education to the children of internationally mobile professionals. As such many started out
as parent cooperatives and continue to have governance models based on high levels of parental influence
(Hayden, 2006). More and more schools are now, however, being bought or built by well-funded groups and
the proportion of schools run for profit is increasing considerably, particularly those catering to the wealthiest
group of locals in countries that adopt a laissez-faire attitude to the construction of such schools.
Chief administrator turnover studies in international schools
The relevant research findings that do exist can be considered under a number of headings, as follows.
Average tenure
For Littleford (1999: 33) ‘too many international schools today are revolving doors for heads’. Hawley (1994,
1995) also painted a sorry picture of chief administrator turnover in international schools. His research
detailed the longevity of chief administrators in the 251 US-accredited overseas schools in existence
between 1981 and 1990. On the basis of a questionnaire returned by 196 out of 336 chief administrators
employed in such schools during this period, the average tenure of an international school chief
administrator was found to be 2.8 years. Fifteen per cent left after only one year, while fewer than four per
cent remained in the same position for seven or more years to give that institution what Littleford describes
as their years of greatest contribution ‘when parents, past parents, board members and alumni begin to feel
a debt to the current head for the success of their children’ (2005: n.p.). Over one-half had left by the end of
their third year, which is the minimum time period advocated for any change introduced to be successful,
according to change experts such as Martin-Kniep (1997, in Hardman, 2001). Just over one-quarter stayed
for the minimum five-year term argued in a wider context to be required for major restructuring efforts to
begin to take effect (Fullan, 2007; McAdams, 1997).
In Hawley’s (1994) study, the length of time spent by chief administrators in a US-accredited overseas
school varied depending on the school’s location: 4.8 years in Europe; 3.4 years in the Middle East; 3.1
years in Latin America; 2.5 years in Asia; and 1.9 years in Africa. The figure for Africa matched the tenure of
chief administrators who worked in so-called ‘Travel Warning Countries’ – countries where short-term
conditions pose imminent risks to the security of citizens (US State Department, 2009). The tenure in Asia
was similar to that in ‘Travel Alert Countries’ (2.7 years): countries where long-term, protracted conditions
make a country dangerous or unstable (US State Department, 2009). It was not known in Hawley’s study
whether the chief administrators in such contexts were aware of the conditions in Travel Warning Countries
and Travel Alert Countries and, as a result, only planned a short stay; if they faced unreasonable
expectations about the environment; or whether an unanticipated change in the country brought about a
decision to leave.
Why chief administrators leave their positions
Eighty-three of the 196 chief administrators who responded to Hawley’s (1994, 1995) questionnaire
answered the final question about their main reasons for leaving their last such position. The reasons they
gave for leaving their last post fell broadly into five categories: 61 out of 83 mentioned the school board; 38
referred to career considerations; 34 to family and personal issues; and 24 to the host country environment.
Four pointed to specific characteristics of the school where they worked, each giving a different reason (lack
of administrative help, staff and parental issues, the school being too large and the breadth of expectations
expressed by the school’s many nationalities); while 3 mentioned non-renewal of contract.
Hawley’s (1995) findings about the school board are supported by Hodgson’s (2005) and Stout’s (2007)
assertions that such bodies in international schools have a notorious reputation for bad governance. The
results from a self-rating survey on school governance carried out by the European Council of International
Schools (ECIS), however, one of the many support agencies established for international schools, revealed
a very different scenario. ECIS is an association whose primary service is professional development for
international educators through such avenues as the International Leadership and Management Program
(ILMP) and the Sustainable International School Governance Program (SISGP). Twenty-nine per cent of the
119 chief administrators who returned the confidential part of the ECIS survey rated their board as excellent,
while another 50 per cent were ranked as good, 17 per cent as fair and only 3 per cent as poor (Schoppert,
2001b).
Hawley (1995) found that over one-third of responses pertaining to the school board highlighted two
areas of concern: one in five mentioned regular changes in board membership and one in seven referred to
board micromanagement. None of the other 29 board-related reasons considered as possible areas of
concern registered more than three responses. For this reason, the analysis of school boards below is
confined to these two issues.
Changes in board membership
International schools do not normally experience difficulties in recruiting board members (Malpass, 1994).
People are generally motivated to join school boards because they want to make a difference. However,
some board members have a personal agenda, such as the perceived prestige it brings (Tangye, 2005),
getting the best for their offspring (Hawley, 1995; Stout, 2005), or having ‘a particular axe to grind’ (Malpass,
1994: 23). Yet there is nothing ‘more destructive of board effectiveness than a member pursuing his or her
personal agenda without consideration for the views of others or the good of the school’ (Tangye, 2005: 15).
Many board members also find the task much more demanding than expected and soon resign their position
(Malpass, 1994), sometimes in the middle of the school year (Littleford, 1999). According to Stout (2007),
the best board members are usually those who have to be persuaded to join the board.
Some schools also require board members to stand down after a fixed, relatively short period of time.
Schoppert (2001b) and Littleford (2005) stress that such limits on tenure should be avoided in order to
ensure more board stability. In schools with low board member turnover, chief administrators tend to stay
longer than where high board turnover is the norm. Hawley (1994) found that where board member turnover
was 90 per cent, the chief administrator stayed, on average, for 2 years whereas, when that figure dropped
to 20 per cent, the chief administrator’s tenure was almost doubled to 3.5 years. Since half of the schools in
his study had a board-length term of 1 year, he recommended a minimum term of 2 years for each board
member to avoid situations where it is ‘only the original Board... [who] remember why the Head was hired in
the first place and the vision that the new Head articulated so well’ (Littleford, 2000: 1); this would bring
board tenure in line with that served by a typical board chair (Littleford, 2005).
According to Stout (2007), the structure of school boards tends to conform to one of three main types: the
self-perpetuating board; the elected board; and the appointed board – or hybrids of the three types. Board
turnover is lowest in schools where the board is appointed (Schoppert, 2001a; Littleford, 2005) and a
majority of trustees (board members) are community leaders, past parents and/or alumni. Chief
administrator turnover is highest in schools with all-parent boards (Hawley, 1994; Littleford, 1999, 2005;
Vinge, 2005).
Regardless of the structure of the board, Littleford (1999) states that chief administrators should, where
possible, be involved in board nominations if they are to avoid situations where boards propose members
with whom the chief administrator is uncomfortable. Such a situation could arise when that person does not
share the chief administrator’s mission, particularly concerning the nomination of the new board chair who –
according to Stout (2005) – should not be a parent, but may have been associated in the past as a parent.
Littleford (1999) also recommends that chief administrators should nominate to their school boards more
expatriate ‘locals’ who live in the community, have married into the local culture and retain a commitment to,
and an understanding of, international education.
Board micromanagement
The dividing line between governance and leadership/management is not quite so clear cut as it may appear
in theory (Walker, 2004; Hayden and Thompson, 2009). While it may be the board’s job to govern and the
head’s job to lead/manage, it would be ‘an unwise head who took no interest in policy-making and an
unusual board that took no interest in the implementation of that policy’ (Hayden and Thompson, 2009: 66).
The relationship can be successful provided that both sides understand this overlap of responsibilities.
Where the relationship is not clearly understood chief administrators are vulnerable and can find themselves
quickly out of a job (Malpass, 1994).
To avoid board micromanagement, Hawley (1994) recommended that schools have a written policy
manual that is put into practice. Where this was the case, he found that school chief administrator tenure
almost doubled to 4.7 years. He also recommended that boards evaluate chief administrators on a
consistent basis to make them aware of what they are doing well and the areas that need improvement.
Where a chief administrator was evaluated twice during their tenure, the
Benson: Chief administrator turnover in international schools 91 length of stay increased to almost five
years, up from 3.7 years in schools where no evaluations took place. Yet ECIS found that 41 per cent of
boards do not evaluate the chief administrator (Schoppert, 2001b). According to Bowley (2001), evaluations
should be carried out annually, as should an evaluation of the board chair. Yet only one-third of boards
evaluate their own performance (Schoppert, 2001b). Chief administrator evaluations, according to Matthews
(2001), should be carried out against specific pre-established criteria, such as those published by another of
the agencies that support international schools, the Council of International Schools (CIS, 2003) – a nonprofit association that provides services including accreditation and governance support to international
schools – and not used solely as a contributor to decisions about contract renewal.
Methodology
Taking into account the mushrooming numbers and disparate types of international schools, one of the main
hurdles to those wishing to analyse international schools, in one way or another, is deciding which schools
may be considered international. I therefore decided to follow Odland’s (2007) idea of using a freely
available and readily accessible body of information: a sample of 603 international schools in 110 countries
that are members of CIS and/or ECIS and that responded to at least one of the two organizations’ annual
surveys in 2008. From the data collected in those surveys, 422 (70 per cent) chief administrators were male
and 181 (30 per cent) female. The almost one-in-three figure of female chief administrators is higher than
Thearle’s (2000) figure of 20 per cent and matches the figures found in such Western European countries as
England (Department for Education and Skills, 2006), France, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland
(Coleman, 2001).
Following a careful analysis of the small amount of turnover-related literature available (Hawley, 1994,
1995; Hardman, 2001; Odland, 2007; Odland and Ruzicka, 2009), a web-based questionnaire was
constructed for the present study which consisted of 35 questions based on Blaxter et al.’s (2006) and
Denscombe’s (2007) question-type suggestions: category, closed, Likert scale, list, open, quantity and
verbal. All chief administrators completed the 18 compulsory questions in sections one and two about
themselves (for example, gender, age and nationality) and their previous educational experience (for
instance, the number of years and schools where they had been international school chief administrators
and whether they held a professional qualification, such as from the Principals’ Training Center [PTC]).
Those who had also worked as an international school chief administrator in a previous school filled in
sections three and four. Section three asked for a profile of the last school they worked in, including its
geographical location, the age-range of the students and the initial contract period. Section four was made
up of a Likert scale of nine pre-designated and pre-coded considerations relating to career, contractual,
family, financial, host country, personal, school-board, other-involuntary and other-school related issues, and
an open question about why they had left their previous school. The final two questions of the section asked
whether the school’s board could have done anything to prevent the chief administrator from leaving, and if
he/she wished to add any further comments. These two questions were intended to allow the chief
administrators to add more information to supplement the reasons they gave for leaving their previous
international school position.
Prior to sending the questionnaire I emailed an introductory letter to all 603 schools in order to inform
them about the research project. The web-based questionnaire was emailed a week later as a hyperlink and
remained open for two weeks. The questionnaire reached a maximum of 575 schools as 28 schools rejected
the email for a variety of mainly technically related reasons, including permanent rejection and full inboxes. It
is not known precisely how many chief administrators received the questionnaire as only 40 of the email
addresses provided on the CIS and ECIS databases were those of the current chief administrators
personally. Halfway through the planned survey period, a follow-up email was sent to those who had not
returned the questionnaire with a view to enhancing the response rate (Blaxter et al., 2006; Dillman, 2007).
At the end of the two-week period, a total of 165 chief administrators had completed and submitted the
survey: 119 (72.1 per cent) male and 46 (27.9 per cent) female. The breadth and purposefulness of the
sample allowed for the collection of important data relevant to the research questions (Patton, 2002; Punch,
2005).
The last section of the questionnaire asked for agreement from those with previous international school
chief administrator experience to participate in a one-to-one semi-structured interview to ‘follow up ideas,
probe responses and investigate motives and feelings, which the questionnaire can never do’ (Bell, 2005:
157). One-to-one interviews, with an agreed maximum length of 45 minutes, took place with eight chief
administrators: six male and two female. Six of the interviews were conducted by telephone and two face-toface. Seven of them were recorded (with their agreement) either with a telephone recorder or digitally, while
one interviewee preferred not to be recorded and so field notes were taken during the interview. At all stages
of the research, prospective participants were fully informed about the nature of the research. This permitted
them to make an informed judgement about whether they wished to contribute (Knight, 2002; Blaxter et al.,
2006; Cohen et al., 2007; Denscombe, 2007).
Data analysis
Questionnaire
Questionnaire data relating to average tenure was quantitative in nature and suitable for statistical analysis.
The median was used as a measure of central tendency to exclude any outlying quantifiers from the wide
discrepancy in tenure: at one extreme, 4 out of the 83 chief administrators withprevious international school
experience in the same role stayed for one year at their previous school; at the other extreme, one had
remained for 23 years.
Items in sections one to three of the questionnaire were analysed in terms of their potential influence on
chief administrator tenure, while the question of why chief administrators left their previous international
schools generated a distribution of numerical responses from a Likert scale. It also generated responses to
open-ended questions in the form of text. In respect of the reasons why international school chief
administrators left their last schools, the use of open-ended questions provided a more complete and
detailed perspective (Punch, 2005; Blaxter et al., 2006; Bryman, 2006; Denscombe, 2007). Reasons given
were copied onto a spreadsheet, placed into the relevant pre-designated and pre-coded category, and
compared with any alternative theories or explanations from other research to establish whether they
supported or contradicted any existing conclusions, or if they produced any new generalized conclusions.
Interviews
The interviews were partially transcribed to permit me to concentrate on ‘rich’ material (Drever, 2003;
Gillham, 2005; Kvale, 2007) from the nine considerations mentioned earlier. Once I had analysed the data
and combined extracts from the interviews with questionnaire findings supportive in developing a particular
line of argument, I contacted the respective interviewee to confirm that what was said at the time of the
interview was what was really meant and had not been said ‘in the heat of the moment’ (Denscombe, 2007).
Findings
Of the 165 chief administrators who responded to the questionnaire, 82 (49.7 per cent) were in their first
post and 83 (50.3 per cent) had worked as such in at least two schools. It was from this latter group of 83
chief administrators that the responses to the two research questions came:
(1) How long, on average, do school chief administrators remain in a position?
(2) As perceived by school chief administrators in the study, why did they leave their previous position
and what were the most important reasons for doing so?
For question 1 the current sample of 83 is lower than Hawley’s (1994) sample of 196 chief administrators.
For question 2, both the present survey and Hawley’s (1995) research drew, coincidentally, on the same
number of 83 respondents. The potential influence of items in sections one and two of the current study on
chief administrator tenure in international schools was judged on the basis of data from all 165 respondents.
Average tenure of international school chief administrators
The average tenure of international school chief administrators was 3.7 years from 83 respondents,
compared with Hawley’s (1994) figure of 2.8 years from 196 respondents. One of those interviewed for the
current study regarded four years as ‘a solid chunk of time’ for an international school chief administrator
(chief administrator 1). A possible reason for the increase in tenure since Hawley’s (1994) study is the
improvement in technology. This has allowed current and aspiring chief administrators to gather more
detailed information than was previously available about an advertised vacancy, the school where the
vacancy exists and the host-country environment. Chief administrators may therefore be able to make more
realistic decisions about the impact such issues will have on themselves and their families long before they
arrive in country.
The length of tenure also varied according to the school’s location, as shown in Table 1, which shows that
chief administrators now stay in a position in each geographical region for between three and four years. In
Hawley’s (1994) study there was a large discrepancy between time spent in Europe (4.8 years) and that
spent in Africa (1.9 years). Although the figure for Europe has fallen in the current study by 0.9 years, I
received almost twice as many responses from Europe (33) as from Asia (18) and three times as many from
Europe as from the Middle East (12), Africa (10) and the Americas (10). The data from the present study is
labelled Benson (2011).
Table 1. Comparative average tenure by location
Location
Average tenure (years)
Hawley (1994) n
= 196
Europe
Middle East
Americas
Asia
Africa
4.8
3.4
3.1
2.5
1.9
Benson (2011)
n = 83
3.9
3.0
4.0
3.8
3.5
While there was an increase in tenure between Hawley’s (1994) study and this study, the number of chief
administrators who left their school on a year-on-year basis has fallen in the current study, as can be seen in
Table 2.
Table 2. Comparative tenure
Percentage of chief administrators
Hawley (1994) n = 196
who left after
Benson (2011) n = 83
15
5
1 year
75
66.7
5 years
97.1
83.3
7 years
Hawley (1994) did not state how many chief administrators left before the end of their initial contracts. In
the present study three left a position before the end of an initial contract; one signed a 2-year contract but
left after 1 year and two signed 3-year contracts but left after 2 years. Five years is the time when ‘most
school heads have begun to make a difference’ at their schools, according to Littleford (1999: 24). Seven
years was the time period when Hawley (1994) stopped calculating his figures due to there being only eight
chief administrators by that stage who were still working at the same school. This compares with a figure of
14 in the current study, where 1 in 10 were still at the same school at the end of, what Littleford (2005)
regards as, their ‘years of greatest contribution’ – between 8 and 10 years.
Too few respondents in this study worked in ‘travel alert’ and ‘travel warning’ countries to make
meaningful comparisons with Hawley’s (1994) average tenure of 2.7 years in the former and 1.9 years in the
latter country grouping. Only two chief administrators’ previous schools were in either of these two types of
countries. One had completed a 2-year initial contract in a ‘travel warning’ country having averaged 4 years
at several previous international schools; one spent 3 years in a ‘travel alert’ country after signing an initial 2year contract, but had spent 5 years at a previous school. One of the interviewees who is currently working
in a ‘travel warning’ country intends to leave at the end of the initial 2-year contract. In all three cases, the
host country environment – corruption, having had enough of the country, and having to run the secondary
school by telephone from the nearby primary school due to the security situation – was said to have played
a significant part in their reasons for leaving, just as was the case in Hawley’s (1994) study.
Influences on chief administrator tenure in international schools
In the current study, three items included in section one of the questionnaire would seem to influence tenure:
working in countries where the language is the same as the individual’s native language, marital status and
children living with the chief administrator (see Table 3). As can be seen in Table 3, chief administrators tend
to stay in posts for 4.5 years if the language of the country where they are working is the same as their
native language, compared with 3.1 years where the languages differ. Of the eight chief administrators
interviewed, seven worked in countries where the language was not the same as their native language.
None highlighted it as a major factor in their international school experience as chief administrators.
However, the only chief administrator who admitted to having a reasonable grasp of the host country
language was the only one who had remained for more than three years at the school. Table 3 also shows
that those chief administrators who are married or who have a partner remained for 4.2 years; those that do
not have such a support system at home stayed for 3.4 years. This possibly supports Littleford’s (1999,
2005) findings in US independent schools that the longer-term and more successful heads in US independent schools have stable marriages or support systems. In addition, it can be seen from Table 3 that those
who have two or more children living with them stayed for over 5 years, those with one child for 4 years and
those without children for 3.5 years. Four of those interviewed had at least some of their children living with
them and attending the school. For three of them a paramount factor in their decision to extend a contract
beyond the initial contract period had been the stage in school reached by at least one of their children; for
instance, preparing for public examinations or internal assessments at age 16.
Table 3. Personal factors influencing tenure
Factor
Home language
Marital status
Currently living with
children
Average tenure
Same as country
where working
4.5 years
Married or with a
partner
4.2 years
No children
3.5 years
Different from country where working
3.1 years
Not married or with a partner
3.4 years
1 child
4 years
2 or more
children
5.2 years
The findings of this study point to the possibility of three items included in section two of the questionnaire
(the chief administrator’s work profile) influencing tenure: whether they had prior teaching experience in
international schools; whether they had experience as a chief administrator in their home country; and
whether they had a chief administrator’s professional qualification (see Table 4). Where Hawley (1994)
carried out tests of association on the same items, his findings are also shown.
Table 4 reveals that having prior teaching experience in an international school may lead to longer tenure
as a chief administrator: 4.6 years for those with such experience and 4 years for those without prior
international school teaching experience. Hawley’s (1994) figures are 4.2 years and 3.5 years, respectively.
Hawley (1994) believed that this may have been because those with previous experience can understand
and thus serve better the needs of expatriate teachers. Those with previous international school teaching
experience are also probably more aware of what two of the chief administrators described as amateur setups and the different philosophies that can exist in profit and not-for-profit schools. It can also be seen in
Table 4 that those in the current study who had five or more years’ experience as a chief administrator in
their home country had an average tenure of 4.4 years; those with no experience had an average tenure of
3.8 years. Views from the interviewees about how prepared they were for the moves from their home
country to an international school varied. Of the four who had worked in their home countries as a chief
administrator, three felt they had been partly prepared, particularly where the move was, for example, from
an English state school to an international school offering the English national curriculum. However, each of
the four had felt relatively unprepared for the types of working practices they encountered when they moved
to the international school sector. One simply commented that such a move involves ‘a big learning curve’
(chief administrator 1). Furthermore, Table 4 suggests that an international chief administrator’s qualification
provides better preparation for leading an international school than does a national qualification. The
difference in average tenure is a full 2 years: 5 years for those with an international qualification and 3 for
those with a national qualification. Interestingly, those chief administrators with neither qualification remained
for 4.6 years, a little less than those who possess an international qualification but 1.6 years longer than
those with a national qualification. These figures may suggest how much more an international chief
administrator’s qualification prepares one for such a position than a national qualification. The figures also
perhaps suggest that international qualifications need further development if chief administrators stayed in a
position for 4.6 years whether they held such a qualification or not.
Table 4. Professional factors influencing tenure
Factor
Prior teaching experience in
an international school
Average tenure
Five or more years experience
4.6 years (Benson, 2011)
4.2 years (Hawley, 1994)
No experience
4 years (Benson, 2011)
3.5 years (Hawley, 1994)
Chief administrator experience Five or more years experience
in home country
4.4 years
Chief administrator’s
professional qualification
International, e.g.,
Principals’ Training Center
(PTC)
5 years
No experience
3.8 years
No
qualification
4.6 years
National, e.g., Professional
Qualification for
Headteachers (NPQH)
3 years
Five items in section three of the questionnaire would seem to influence tenure: the age-range of students
catered for at the school, the curriculum offered by the school, the number of students enrolled, the length of
the initial contract period and whether the chief administrator was externally recruited or internally promoted
(see Table 5). With respect to the different types of school, I have included here as a category what I have
called developing schools (a term I created after finding nothing comparable in the literature). A developing
school is a school that will one day, for example, be a pre-K–12 or K–12 school but which so far has only
reached a certain point in its development such as Grade 7, and so has become (in this example) a pre-K–7
or K–7 school, which in the following school year, will reach Grade 8 before eventually covering all year
groups.
Table 5. School-related factors influencing tenure
Factor
Average tenure
Age-range of
students
Pre-K–12 or K–12 school
4.3 years
Number of
students on
roll
Small schools (1–250)
3.3 years (Benson, 2011)
2.8 years (Hawley, 1994)
Curriculum offered
Developing schools, secondary schools or primary schools
2.9 years
Medium-sized schools
4.4 years (Benson, 2011)
no data (Hawley, 1994)
At least one of the IB programmes
4.4 years (Benson, 2011)
3.8 years (Hawley, 1994)
Initial contract period
Contract under 3 years
3.4 years
Externally recruited or
internally promoted
Externally recruited
3.6 years
Large schools (1000+)
3.1 years (Benson, 2011)
4.6 years (Hawley, 1994)
None of the IB programmes
3 years (Benson, 2011)
2.7 years (Hawley, 1994)
Contract of 3 years Non-fixed term contract
4.8 years
7.1 years
Internally promoted
5 years
Table 5 shows that chief administrators stay longer in Pre-K–12 or K–12 schools than in primary schools,
secondary schools or developing schools: 4.3 years versus 2.9 years. Perhaps chief administrators use
developing, secondary and primary schools as a stepping stone to a larger Pre-K–12 or K–12 school.
Regarding the size of the school, it can also be seen from Table 5 that figures from the current study are
different to those in Hawley’s (1994) research. Hawley (1994) found that chief administrators moved from
smaller to larger schools. My findings reveal a different tendency: 25 chief administrators moved to a larger
school; the same number moved to a school of comparable size; and 33 moved to a smaller school. None of
the eight interviewees believed that moving from a smaller to a larger school was important in their decisionmaking; one mentioned that moving to a smaller school had been important as a career decision. More
important were, for example, the circumstances surrounding the decision to move, such as the possibility of
‘building a school from the ground up’ (chief administrator 3) or moving from a school where ‘money was
king’ to a well-resourced and well-funded school where the ‘stance of the owners in relation to profit’ was
completely the opposite (chief administrator 6). Moreover, Table 5 reveals the attraction of the International
Baccalaureate (IB) programmes to a chief administrator. When Hawley (1994) carried out his study, the
Diploma Programme (DP) was the only IB programme in existence. In schools that ran the DP in Hawley’s
study the average tenure of a chief administrator was 3.8 years, whereas it was 2.7 years where other
curricular programmes were offered. Hawley described IB schools as prestigious. Perhaps chief
administrators still see this as a reason to remain longer at such schools. In schools where at least one of
the three IB programmes is offered – DP, Middle Years Programme (MYP) and Primary Years Programme
(PYP) – chief administrators in the current study stayed for 4.4 years. Schools offering other programmes
found that a chief administrator moved on after 3 years. In addition, it can be seen from Table 5 that the
longer the initial contract, the longer the chief administrator stayed at a school: 3.4 years for those who
originally signed a two-year contract and 4.8 years where it was a three-year contract. Those without the
pressure of contract length hanging over them stayed longest of all: 7.1 years. These figures also appear to
be linked to two issues revealed during the interviews: the reason why the chief administrator has been
recruited in the first place; and local contractual conditions. In the first instance, two chief administrators
pointed out that two years is fairly standard for those who have been brought in to turn a school’s fortunes
around; while in some countries a chief administrator must sign at least a 3-year contract. Finally, Table 5
shows that chief administrators who were internally promoted to the position had stayed for 5 years, while
those who were externally recruited remained for 3.6 years. Four-fifths of those who responded were
recruited from outside the school. This situation is similar to Littleford’s findings (2007) in US independent
schools. However, in Littleford’s study the nine in ten recruited externally stayed for three to six years, while
those internally promoted stayed long term.
Why chief administrators left their previous international schools
The three considerations which played a very important or quite important part (a great deal or quite a lot
in the Likert scale) for chief administrators when they left their previous positions were the school board (40
of the 83 respondents), career (37) and the family (20). The board played a very important part for 29 of
them, while for career considerations it was 20 and for family, 13. Less than 10 per cent considered any of
the other categories as very important in their decisions to leave. However, both the host country
environment (11) and financial considerations (10) were considered quite important, behind only the school
board (12) and career considerations (17).
Just as with the Likert scale, the school board and career considerations dominated the responses given
by the chief administrators to the open question about why they left their previous international schools.
Fifty-one of the respondents mentioned the school board; 49 career considerations; and 20 and 18,
respectively, highlighted the importance of other school-related considerations and family reasons. The
school board and career considerations also stood out with regard to importance, for 37 and 32
respondents, respectively, as the primary reasons for leaving their last post. It is also in the school board
and career considerations categories that the most common reasons can be found for their departures, as
Table 6 reveals.
Only 20 of the 85 different reasons given by the chief administrators were mentioned more than twice; 55
were referred to only once. Eighteen of the chief administrators stated that they left their previous positions
for a new challenge. This supports Hardman’s (2001) findings that highlight the importance of career
considerations for both chief administrators and teachers in international schools. The next two most
commonly referred-to reasons for leaving were school board-related: 12 mentioned a change in board
membership and 9 referred to micromanaging by the school board. These two issues were raised at length
during the interviews. Two interviewees supported Littleford’s (2000) assertion that regular changes in board
composition place the chief administrator in a situation where boards do not see the same skills in the chief
administrator that were required by the original board. One of the same chief administrators had not seen a
board member last as long as 3 years in four previous schools, while another stated that eight of the nine
board members changed nine months into his 2-year contract. This chief administrator left at the end of the
initial contract period. These two situations contrast sharply with the experience of another of the
interviewees, who had spent nine years at the school, during which time the board chair remained the same
and the board changed very little. The board was also composed of the previous director and an expatriate
‘local’ (Littleford, 1999) who had previously had children at the school (Stout, 2005).
Seven of the eight chief administrators experienced micromanaging boards. Two comments from different
chief administrators make for unpleasant reading: one described a board as comprising ‘ruthless business
people who set up satellite schools to extend their empires at any cost’ (chief administrator 1), while another
referred to the board chair as an ‘interfering megalomaniac; if someone is power crazy, it permeates
everything’ (chief administrator 7). Even in the case of the chief administrator who stayed at the previous
school for nine years, there was an underlying threat at times: ‘they didn’t interfere in the educational side of
things’ (chief administrator 4), but one comment makes it appear that they were aware of Hawley’s (1994)
study: ‘the average life of a chief administrator is 2.8 years; you have been here for 7 years’ (chief
administrator 4). The wide variety of experiences described by chief administrators can mean that boards
are still unclear about the essential role they play in schools. The disparate nature of the international school
sector may also play an important role in this lack of clarity.
Contractual considerations were the next most important reason, referred to by seven as the main reason
they left. Two of the eight interviewees also left schools after their respective boards changed the terms of
contract without discussion. One is owed about US$30,000 but has no recourse to the money. The other
stated that when such a situation occurs the choice is to ‘take legal action which is lengthy and expensive, or
walk’ (chief administrator 1).
The next most popular reasons also came in the school board and career-related categories: six
respondents left because of differences with the board, five due to board behaviour, and the same number
as a result of a sense of completion. Hawley (1995) found a similar number of responses regarding a sense
of completion as a reason given for leaving. He went on further to say that given the average school head
tenure of 2.8 years, it was likely that a sense of completion came from reaching only short-term goals. Of the
five chief administrators who specifically referred to it in this study, three had spent 7, 8 and 9 years,
respectively, at the school.
Salary and benefits were also mentioned by five respondents, compared to 12 in Hawley’s (1995) study.
Hawley (1995) analysed the issue of chief administrators’ salaries but concluded that it was difficult
comparing salaries not only from country to country, but also from one year to the next, given the wide
differences in the cost of living in various countries. A potential reason why it was mentioned by so few chief
administrators was provided by one of the interviewees. The relatively low salary was compensated for by
the spouse working and the quality of education received by the children. The only other reasons for leaving
to attract as many as five responses were too much parental interference or power, and a lack of support
from the staff, both of which appeared in the other school-related considerations category.
Table 6. Reasons for chief administrator departure
Consideration
Reason for leaving
Career
School board
School board
Contractual
School board
School board
Career
Financial
School-related
School-related
A new challenge
Change in board membership
Micromanaging
n/a
Differences with the board
Board behaviour
A sense of completion
Salary and benefits
Too much parental involvement
Lack of staff support
Number of
respondents
18
12
9
7
6
5
5
5
5
5
Possible action by school board to prevent the chief administrator from leaving
In only one case had a chief administrator been willing to stay on longer. Only 13 responses to the ‘further
comments’ question were positive in nature: six stated that it had been the right time to move on and seven
referred to how positive their time at the school had been. Two-thirds of the participants, however, left
following a difference of opinion with the board, where only serious – and what in certain instances appears
to be unfeasible – change for the board could have altered the situation. The preponderance of school
board-related issues in both this study and Hawley’s (1994) study was clearly captured by one of the
interviewees who stressed the point that ‘at one level or another, many [of the chief administrators] are
frustrated particularly by issues related to the board and [the fact] that they keep happening over and over
again’ (chief administrator 3).
Conclusion
This study suggests that chief administrators stay at an international school for an average of 3.7 years, an
increase of 0.9 years since Hawley’s (1994) study. The geographical location of a school was an important
factor in Hawley’s (1994) study, with a difference of almost 3 years between the average tenure of a chief
administrator in Europe (4.8 years) and one in Africa (1.9 years). In the current study geographical location
appeared to be less of an issue, as the difference between the highest average tenure (the Americas) and
the lowest (the Middle East) is 1 year: 4 years and 3 years, respectively.
School board issues, however, are still the primary reason why chief administrators move on to another
school, although career considerations also rank very highly in the decision-making process. Even where
chief administrators moved to their current position for career-based reasons, a board-related reason for
departure was regularly mentioned. More specifically, the same two school board-related reasons found by
Hawley (1995) – changes in board composition and micromanaging – are still the most significant reasons
for chief administrator dissatisfaction with school boards. As Hawley (1995) also pointed out in his study,
school boards appear to be on the periphery of the international school sector. How would the findings from
both this research and Hawley’s (1994, 1995) look if international school boards were given the opportunity
to respond to the widespread criticisms directed at them by chief administrators? More studies such as this
one but with a focus on school boards, as well as work undertaken by organizations such as ECIS through
their Sustainable International School Governance Program (SISGP) and evaluations of such programmes,
need to be carried out to avoid similar conclusions being reached by other researchers in 15 years time.
A considerable number of international school chief administrators seem to be conscious of the
recommendations made by Hawley’s (1995) study. Four of those interviewed made reference to the
recommendations, particularly that a careful examination should be made of the current and historical social,
economic and political climate of the school and the host country, and whether or not the salary package
offered meets their needs, given local economic conditions. It is possible that these recommendations have
contributed, in some way, to the increase in chief administrator tenure in international schools.
Bearing this in mind, I have several recommendations for school boards based on the findings from the
present study that may help to increase average chief administrator tenure in international schools. First, in
terms of the personal profile of chief administrators, boards could consider hiring more married or partnered
chief administrators, especially those with at least one child. Second, as regards the professional profiles of
chief administrators, they may wish to recruit those with previous teaching experience in the international
school sector, with experience as chief administrators in their home country, and with a relevant international
qualification such as from the PTC or the ECIS International Leadership & Management Programme (ILMP),
particularly where aspirants are already working at the school rather than applying as external candidates.
School boards must also understand where international chief administrators fit into the brief the board
has for them. In this study, career considerations follow close behind school board-related issues as reasons
for a chief administrator moving from one position to another. The most specific career-related reason
mentioned, and the most common one given by those who responded to the survey, was the need for a new
challenge (18 out of 83 respondents). When a board is looking for a new chief administrator a number of
factors can be borne in mind, including what curriculum programmes the school offers, the age-range of the
students and the number of students on roll. Chief administrators tend to stay longer at medium-sized preK–12 or K–12 schools that offer at least one of the IB programmes. Once a chief administrator has been
chosen, a minimum 3-year contract or, possibly, a non-fixed term contract should be offered. As soon as the
chief administrator arrives in country, where the local language is different from his or her native language,
consideration should be given to providing ongoing and long-term local language training.
Language learning is just one area where chief administrators could receive extra training. I echo both
Malpass’ (1994) and Hayden and Thompson’s (2009) call for leadership/management training as well. This
should be not just for chief administrators, but also for boards. CIS already runs partnership workshops
which are open to the two-person team of board chair and chief administrator. Two of those interviewed,
however, felt that these courses merely paid lip-service to the school board-related problems reported in this
study. Furthermore, such organizations do not have any formal procedures for intervening in the types of
conflict that have been pointed out here, even where such conflicts occur in accredited schools.
The current arrangements that exist in international schools are not robust enough to set consistently
applied recognizable standards for the fragmented international school sector. Unless an overarching
international school body can bring to an end the current situation in which schools can choose either to
avail themselves of or to ignore any such standards, three or four years as an international school chief
administrator may continue to be the length of time it takes for the board–chief administrator relationship to
break down in many international schools.
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Biographical note
John Benson is a UK-trained secondary school teacher of French and Spanish, who is also qualified as a
Teacher of English as a Second Language (TEFL). After five years working in a state school in London as
both a teacher and head of department, he worked as a volunteer teacher trainer at the University of Beira,
Mozambique. Most recently, he has been employed in international schools in China and Jordan as a
teacher, head of department and assistant head. Currently taking a year’s sabbatical to travel through the
Americas, he intends to return to international education in September 2011.