Professionalism — Trained vs. Untrained and BEd vs. PGDE

There was a consensus (92.2% for primary school principals and 90.7% for principals of early childhood sector) that graduates who have received professional teacher training are more professionally competent than those who have not.

When comparing graduates with a Bachelor of Education (BEd) Degree and those with a Post-graduates Diploma in Education (PGDE), there is a slight preference for BEd over PGDE. Statisticallyspeaking, 30.7% of primary school principals agreed that graduates with a BEd Degree are more professionally competent than those with a PGDE while 19.5% disagreed.

Work Attitudes — the most important teacher attribute

On the importance of teachers' various professional attributes (28 items for kindergartens and childcare centres; 29 items for primary schools), principals in both sectors unanimously weighed "work attitudes" the highest, followed by items in "student development domain" and then items on "teaching and learning domain".