Springs Technical High School was founded and officially opened on the 19th of January 1965, managed and in oversight by the Department of National Education. The number of Afrikaans and English speaking students at the date of registration was 186, with 20 staff members, with Mr C.J. Coetzee appointed as the first principal of the school. Subsequently, the school was transferred to fall under the jurisdiction of the Transvaal Department of Education as from April 1968. Proving no exception, our status was changed, to be recognised as a secondary school following a specific field of study; hence the status of Technical School was applied from January 1973.
The school showed a phenomenal growth, boasting with 850 students at the beginning of 1975, ranking the school as the largest secondary school at the time in Springs. Due to the exceptional growth, a decision was taken to gradually implement the process of transferring English speaking students to Springs Boys’ High School, in order to develop and retain the Afrikaans-medium status of the school. This process was started in 1977, and was completed by 1981.
Mr. J.H.G. Struwig started his tenure as principal in April 1978. Being an all boys school, the first female student was enrolled in 1983. Under the management of Mr. Struwig, the school excelled in not only academic areas, but cultural and sport as well, setting the benchmark of excellence that has been retained since. On the 9th of September 1983, the historic moment of singing the school anthem for the first time was celebrated.
Following the retirement of Mr. Struwig at the end of 1991, Mr. J.P. Smith started his tenure as principal in 1992 until his retirement on the 29th of April 2005. 1 January 2000, was a historic moment in the existence of the school, where the status of being an Afrikaans medium school was revoked, and changed to being a dual-medium, multicultural high school. The first English student that was registered and accepted at the school was Springbok rugby player, Lawrence Sephaka.
19 years of transformation has proven to be challenging but nonetheless has shown positive growth and development within the school. We have kept the number of student registrations constant, and currently have 920 students enrolled in the school. The tenure of the current principal, Ms. Marina Rathe started on 1 January 2006. Her passion includes building relationshipsbetween the school and industry leaders in order to assist learners with learnerships or bursaries for further studies. She has been instrumental in the process of including six new fields of study as part of the syllabus: Woodwork, Building Construction, Fitting and Machining, Automotive, Sheet Metal and Welding, Power Systems and Electronics; giving the school a prime advantage to equip learners for apprenticeships in the formal sector.