Abstract
The problem that this publication addresses is that developing countries lose teachers wishing to escape conflict and social, political or economic hardship. Consequently, the quality of education suffers in the countries left behind; teacher shortage is acute in refugee camps. Teachers are attracted by better salaries and the opportunities for professional growth in countries where the application of good educational practice is possible with reasonable class sizes and appropriate material and pedagogical support. However, teacher migration between developing nations also occurs as people seek out more secure environments and political stability. The report covers research on these issues, the extent to which the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol (CTRP, established in 2004) can assist, case studies, advice on improved recruitment and development of teachers in destination countries and associated problems such as the cross-border recognition of teaching diplomas. The publication raises issues which are addressed in the context of national education systems and intergovernmental agencies. It encouraged me, as reviewer, to make connections with the realm of international education and international schools (which the reports do not reference) and to my own experience with International Baccalaureate (IB) schools.
There were an estimated 215 million international migrants in 2010. Some of this migration is illegal, and much of it is forced by circumstances in the home country. Others migrate to work for multinational companies, the United Nations (UN) and its agencies, the European Union, embassies or to accept other professional positions abroad, and represent a much smaller upper stratum of wage earners. Many of their children, unlike those of worker migrants and refugees, are likely to attend international fee-paying schools. No statistics are given for teacher migrants or for what proportion they represent of the total migrant statistics. When migrants send home part of their earnings in the form of either cash or goods to support their families, these transfers are known as workers’ or migrant remittances, or ‘money for the folks back home’ from the diaspora abroad. Remittances from international migrants are an important capital source for developing countries. For all migrants, it is reported that remittances amounted to a staggering USD325 billion in 2010. Recruitment agencies in developed countries target teachers from developing nations, particularly the small island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean, and place them in hard-to-staff inner-city or isolated rural schools, or in disciplines where there are teacher shortages such as science and mathematics.
Michael Omolewa has contributed one of the most helpful chapters of this publication, entitled ‘Towards a global response to teacher preparation, recruitment and migration’, which includes discussion of teacher retention. Omolewa has a direct link with international education; he was a member of the IB Government Advisory Committee from 2001 to 2006 in his capacity as Ambassador for the Nigerian Permanent Delegation to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris. He was also President of the General Conference of UNESCO 2003–2005. Omolewa outlines the establishment of the CTRP, which aims ‘to balance the rights of teachers to migrate internationally, on a temporary or permanent basis, against the need to protect the integrity of national education systems, and to prevent the exploitation of the scarce human resources of poor countries’ (p. 15) The protocol also seeks to safeguard conditions of service for teacher migrants in the recruiting country. Omolewa asks about the motives ‘of enhancing international relations and intercultural understanding and promoting social justice, for example, with education professionals volunteering in developing countries’ (p. 16). Some nations value teachers trained abroad and provide salary and development incentives for them to return, while others ‘have been glad to get rid of the more articulate and vocal members of society, who could challenge them on their return and thus disturb the peace’.
The CTRP is not legally binding, but it ‘has the potential of stirring up the conscience of member states. Its value lies in its moral authority rather than its legal weight’ (p. 19). This status is similar to sample contracts for international school heads and teachers, provided by organisations such as the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) and the Council of International Schools (CIS), which has a code of ethics for the recruitment and employment of teachers abroad. Would a collaborative discussion among all parties produce improvements to the CTRP and the ECIS/CIS documents, and be an even greater step in the harmonisation of teacher migration practices for all types of schools? It is worth noting that the language itself is evidence of the different departure points and mindsets between national education systems and international schools: the former use the term ‘teacher migration’ while the latter talk about ‘teaching overseas’. Both are equally valid per se, but the word ‘migration’ has come to be associated more with people changing countries in search of improved conditions (refugees representing the extreme cases), whereas ‘teaching abroad’ has exotic overtones of international travel by relatively well-paid teachers who voluntarily leave their homeland for some period of time. They are seen through different lenses.
The chapter by Kimberly Ochs, ‘Revisiting the implementation of the CTRP: furthering implementation and addressing critical steps in the recruitment process’, continues discussion of the CTRP. This protocol has relevance to all countries (not just those of the Commonwealth). Chapter 5, by James Keevy, is dedicated to the preparation of a teacher mobility protocol for Africa, based on the CTRP. In an attempt to harmonise teacher recruitment worldwide, the CTRP has been translated into other languages for wider global distribution in collaboration with Education International, a major non-governmental organisation (NGO) partner of UNESCO representing teacher unions in all countries. Interestingly, there is no global union for teachers in international schools, although in most cases, teachers would be eligible to join local unions and some do; generally, the labour laws of the host country apply if there is any dispute. Ochs reminds us that a cross-national protocol on teacher recruitment must also have the flexibility to accommodate contextual differences between countries while maintaining a common framework. Five factors which can influence the implementation of the CTRP are as follows: the way the education system is organised, teacher supply versus teacher demand, developing versus developed countries (economic, social, political factors), peace versus conflict and internal versus external mobility (p. 30).
A number of other studies in the book arrived at the same findings as the survey of migrating teachers described in Ochs’ chapter. A majority had not heard of the CTRP and therefore were navigating the complexity of overseas recruitment without good advice. Ochs proposes 10 questions reflecting CTRP principles which teachers should ask when considering employment abroad:
Who is telling you about the opportunity to teach overseas?
Do you know your employer expectations in the recruiting country before departure?
Are qualifications evaluated before departure and/or arrival?
Do you have a written employment contract prior to departure?
Are your terms and conditions of employment consistent with those of teachers who are nationals of similar status?
Will you work under the labour laws and rules of the recruiting country?
Is there a complaints mechanism in the recruiting country?
Do you anticipate returning home and if so after how long?
Have you considered the total cost of teaching abroad?
In addition to posts at schools overseas, are there other opportunities to consider for short-term professional development (e.g. teacher-to-teacher exchanges, critical subject exchanges)? (p. 28)
For an international school in a developing nation, an experienced teacher being recruited from a developed country or from the international school ‘circuit’ would expect compensation for removal, settling in, and trips back home which are not part of a local teacher’s salary package. So question 5 above needs to be considered in the context of the host country, the type of school (see later in this review) in that host country and the expectations of the teacher, based on previous conditions of service. Teachers recruited from abroad into state school systems could have equally similar expectations relating to paid home leave, housing and so on.
Closely linked to recruitment is the recognition of teaching certification. Lack of cross-border comparability of teacher qualifications can be an obstacle to migration. The Lisbon Convention (1997) 1 and the Bologna Declaration (1999) 2 – neither of which is referred to in the publication – have facilitated migration across frontiers in higher education and improved mutual cross-border recognition of university access qualifications which are national or international (such as the International Baccalaureate Diploma). The IB Educator Certificates in international education at different levels, now offered by some 20 universities across five continents, and the ECIS International Teacher Certificate (online with a face-to-face institute) are both one-year post-graduate courses offered for the last 8 years, which provide a credential in curriculum planning and pedagogy in international education for use in any school in the world. A discussion between the developers of the CTRP, IB and ECIS could provide some insights into the standardisation and recognition of teaching qualifications around the globe. The Principals’ Training Centre has existed for much longer and its activities include an ‘Essential Skills Program’ consisting of four, week-long institutes leading to a Certificate of International School Leadership. This is specifically for international schools and is transportable across frontiers; it would be beneficial to share it with school leadership training in national systems to see what we could learn from each other.
Four case studies of teacher recruitment and migration are discussed in this publication:
Barbados – implementing strategies to retain good teachers;
United States – boosting teacher training in historically Black colleges/universities to have a supply of graduates better prepared to teach in challenging schools than teachers brought in from resource-constrained countries;
Ethiopia – recruiting some teachers from abroad using a protocol similar to the CTRP;
Zimbabwe – exploring the reasons why education professionals migrate to South Africa.
Two chapters are dedicated to the difficulty of supplying teachers in conflict and post-conflict countries; the problem is discussed in relation to refugee camps in Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The plight of children in lawless Somalia highlights the necessary use of unqualified teachers from within the country and surrounding nations who are prepared to enter an area of high security risk. An added dilemma in conflict situations is that, where qualified staff do migrate to assist, their departure creates a notable gap in the education of the children they leave behind. Recommendations for overcoming the acute shortage revolve around taking volunteers, training them and providing a decent salary to retain them as teachers.
A case study of teacher attrition in 67 primary schools in two fairly remote districts in southern Ethiopia indicates the following reasons for teacher attrition in those areas: to join another profession, to move closer to urban areas, to earn a higher salary, lack of housing, poor school management, lack of promotion, to be closer to a spouse or to escape conflict. One chapter discusses how the lack of qualified lecturers can impair the quality of higher education institutions in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The consequences include lack of recognition of university diplomas abroad and therefore mobility restrictions on students and staff. The concluding chapter reminds us that there are a number of declarations and conventions which confirm that access to education is a human right:
1948 Declaration of Human Rights;
1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to regulate the conduct of armed conflict;
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees;
1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child;
1998 Rome Statute which mandates protection for educational institutions.
Teacher migration can be a major cause of deprivation of quality education in the countries which they leave behind. The migrating teachers also run the risk of being badly treated as they may be naïve about work contracts and conditions of service in other countries. The CTRP is an important step which attempts to alleviate these problems within and beyond Commonwealth countries even though it is not legally binding. An interchange of protocols relating to migration between national systems with those used for ‘teaching overseas’ in private international schools could be a rich source of strategies to facilitate global mobility, professional development opportunities and protection for teachers and the schools which recruit them.
The collection of papers is well structured in four sections:
Managing teacher recruitment and migration;
Application of CTRP principles – experiences from the field and good practices;
Teacher migration – remaining issues to consider;
Next steps in managing teacher migration.
This last section is a little disappointing in that its one and final chapter of the book discusses teacher migration in emergencies only. I was looking for another chapter which would provide a summary of the main conclusions to be drawn from all the papers; this is a shortcoming of the book overall. The format is A4 size of 167 pages with a helpful glossary of abbreviations and acronyms; email addresses of all contributors are provided to facilitate further discussion. To their credit, the Commonwealth Secretariat and UNESCO provide a ‘monitoring form’ at the end for feedback.
This collection of reports generates increased awareness of migration issues in national education systems, and strategies to overcome them. International school educators will recognise that there are a number of issues common to their area of experience, and may be encouraged to seek solutions and offer assistance through an exchange of protocols and collaborative dialogue with the authors.