The future of teacher and school leader recruitment

A presentation for the COBIS Bursars and Heads of HR Conference on Thursday 4th February 2021

 

September recruitment pitfalls and how to avoid them

A new teacher no-show can throw an international school's staffing plans into turmoil. Here's a few thoughts on how to make sure it doesn’t happen;

It’s the start of year surprise that all international school principals and HR departments dread: that excellent young teacher who was so keen to move abroad and join the team has just phoned to say that she is now not coming. There’s a week until the pupils return, you’re a teacher down and there’s no supply agency within 3,000 miles. The post-mortem questions flood one’s mind: “Why did this happen?” “What could we have done to avoid this?” “Where were the signs that this could happen?” Soon, however, these are subsumed by the pressing concern, “What are we going to do to solve this crisis?” This was not the start of term that we wanted. 

Catastrophes and cold feet 

September nightmares broadly fall into two categories. 

First, there are changes in personal circumstances: such as the break-up of a relationship or the close relation who has an accident or is diagnosed with a terminal illness. With changes of this nature, it is quite understandable that a teacher might not want to be embarking on a new adventure thousands of miles from home. It’s just bad luck for all concerned. 

Second, there are times when the teacher simply gets cold feet and either doesn’t get on the plane or they head straight back home after a week or so in the school. These occasions should be avoidable. They are usually due to poor communication, a lack of due diligence on one side or the other or unmet expectations. 

Sometimes the school has not conducted a sufficiently rigorous interview process to check that the teacher has thought through what is entailed in moving abroad; at other times teachers can have a romanticised view of what it is to live and teach abroad. 

One common area of contention is that the standard or location of the accommodation provided by the school falls short of the teacher’s expectations. For some, this is a deal-breaker and they vote with their feet and head to the airport to go home. 

International recruitment is expensive at the best of times (adverts, visas, repatriation packages), but the cost of a no-show goes well beyond the financial. Having to find a replacement teacher at the end of the summer often means compromising on standards or the existing staff teaching over allocation. Either way, it is not good for morale and stops any beginning-of-year momentum dead in the water.

So, how can schools dodge the bullet? 

How to avoid the September nightmare 

The initial stage of moving abroad is an act of faith on both sides and there needs to be a transparent, open dialogue. Here are four ways that schools can ensure this: 

1. Don’t oversell your location There is a tendency in international education for schools and recruitment agencies to over-sell locations. We see it all the time: the pictures in overseas teaching advertisements that focus on iconic skylines, five-star hotels and sun-kissed beaches give a false impression of what it is to be an expat working in a school in a suburb. Yes, there can be beach days and it’s possible to dip into the holiday life, but the reality is that staff won’t be living in five-star accommodation and that the daily routine is far from a holiday experience. Schools would be well-advised to dispel the romantic notions at an early stage. 
2. Be transparent Schools should be as open as possible about what the job entails, how much holiday entitlement there is, the quality and location of any accommodation provided, and especially how the package works. They need to be clear about what costs are covered fully or in part by the school. It’s easy for teachers to look at a higher-than-UK tax-free salary, not realising that the cost of living in the city is much higher and that there may significant expenses that they haven’t thought through. One reason for a no-show is undoubtedly that, on reflection, the sums just don’t add up. Packages vary around the world so schools are best advised to be clear about any contribution that teachers will have to make to school fees, medical insurance and travel costs for the family. 
3. Caveat emptor Schools need to do their due diligence as part of the interview process, probing key issues such as the candidate’s motivation for working abroad. Will the candidate be able to cope with living at a significant distance from family and friends; and have they done their homework about some of the challenges that they might face? It is perhaps not surprising that things go wrong when a school appoints a teacher who has never lived abroad before or even visited the country or region. 
4. Deliver on promises One of the reasons that things go wrong is that schools move the goalposts and do not deliver on the promises made at interview. Sadly, this happens, often as not, when the owner goes over the head of the school principal to enforce cost-cutting measures to balance the books. Relocating a teacher to an apartment in a different part of town or providing smaller accommodation may be allowed within the letter of the job contract, but it can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. 

Solutions 

Schools often turn to their extended community in a crisis situation. There is sometimes a suitably qualified parent or a retired member of staff who is willing to step into the breach on a short-term basis. If all else fails, and in absolute extremis, the only solution is to draw on the considerable expertise of the senior leadership team and put them to task until a suitable replacement is found.

This article was published in Tes on 13/09/2019

The State of Independence: the International Challenge

This article discusses the international challenge of educating the 263 million children in the world who are not in education and the part that both digital technologies and profit-making educational providers are likely to play in meeting this challenge. 

The International Challenge 

The past ten years have seen a rapid expansion in British curriculum education overseas. According to International Schools Consultancy (ISC Research), there are 5.15 million pupils studying at more than 9,854 English medium international schools around the world, of these more than 3,586 are British schools. In this time UK Independent schools have begun to establish overseas campuses which have focused on educating the rising middle classes. 

Despite this rapid growth, there is still a huge shortfall in the provision of schooling from a global perspective. Arguably, the greatest challenge facing education today is that there are an estimated 263 million children who are not in education (UNESCO Institute of Statistics Fact Sheet October 2016, No.39). Furthermore, the same report estimates that the world will need 3.3 million more primary school teachers and 16.7 million more secondary teachers by 2030 to meet future demand. 

Two important conclusions can be drawn from these projections. First, that the not-for-profit sector is not equipped to meet this level of demand; and, secondly, the traditional model of one teacher taking a class of 20-30 pupils is unsustainable – it is a luxury form of education which most developing societies cannot afford or achieve. 

Not-for-profit and For-profit Education 

Education in the West has traditionally been provided on a not-for-profit basis either by governments for state education; or, as in the case of most of the UK independent sector, by charitable organisations. State education provided by profit-making commercial companies is not common or popular in the West and is alien to the British psyche: a recent survey of parents by the Varkey Foundation found that UK parents are the least likely of parents surveyed in 29 countries to approve of private companies providing state-funded schools. Conversely, for-profit education is the norm in the aspirational developing world, so it is no surprise that Indian parents are the most likely to approve of private company involvement in education. 

Experience in Dubai has shown that the not-for-profit sector was not equipped to cope with the rapid increase in demand for expatriate school places as the city grew in population. Consequently, the for-profit sector stepped in, adopting a segmented approach to the Dubai market place. The larger for-profit schools’ groups offer parents a choice of price points ranging from ‘premium’ to ‘budget’ The level of provision, which equates with the fees payable, are differentiated by class size, the provision of on-site facilities, the amount of contact time, and the calibre and experience of the teachers. The Dubai for-profit sector has developed scalable models which benefit from economies of scale and from centralised administrative and training functions. 

For-profit schools’ groups, such as GEMS education, already see the developing world as a potential market and have begun to transfer the expertise gained from establishing schools in the Middle East to building and running schools on an ‘affordable model’ in India, South Asia and Africa. These firms have real potential to have a significant impact on the global demand for education over the coming years. 

Alternative Models for Schooling – Commercial Investment in Online Learning 

The sheer scale of the challenge of educating the hundreds of millions of children presently not in school, combined with the likely acute teacher shortage means that we need to find alternative models which extend the impact of a single teacher beyond the 20-30 students who are in their physical classroom. It is clear that digital technologies have the potential to play an important role to play in alleviating this pressure. 

Global education is very big business - it was a $5 trillion industry in 2014 and is growing by about $600 billion a year. It is no surprise that commercial investors are lining up to step in to offer solutions that will harness technologies to drive the education system of the mid-twenty-first century. The investment by these firms means that online learning programmes are becoming increasingly sophisticated. They promise to do tasks currently performed by teachers by offering personalised learning experiences at a fraction of the present cost. Typically, the program ‘teaches’ a topic (through online videos and interactive exercises); then uses low-stakes testing to assess the student’s knowledge and understanding, highlighting areas of strengths and weakness; before recommending which courses or units to do next. 

One of the great advantages of digital technologies over traditional industrial models is that they provide a cost-effective model for making education available on a huge scale. Once a digital lesson has been produced, the marginal cost of distributing it around the world approaches zero. 

Ten years ago, it was unthinkable that mobile phones would transform local economies in Africa , yet today it is a reality. Is it unreasonable to suggest that in ten years’ time a large proportion of those hundreds of millions of children who currently are not in school, would have access to a basic education through the internet?

This article was published in The State of Independence Eds. David James and Jane Lunnon

Has the time come to start replacing Secondary Teachers with Para-Teachers and the Application of Technology?

Ideal World v Reality

In an ideal world we would want every secondary school child to be taught by a suitably qualified specialist teacher, however we are far from that reality. 

• On a global level according to UNESCO, there are an estimated 263 million children who are not in education and the world will need 5.1 million more lower Secondary teachers by 2030 to meet future demand. 
• On a more parochial level, the UK National Audit Office report Training New Teachers (10 Feb 2016) showed that the proportion of physics classes taught by a teacher without a post A-level physics qualification rose from 21% in 2010 to 28% in 2014; Indeed the Institute of Physics in 2010 estimated that some 500 secondary schools in the UK didn't have a qualified Physics teacher.

Given that the teacher recruitment crisis is only set to get worse, has the time come to review the role of teachers and to look for new models for our schools?

In The Future of the Professions Richard and Daniel Susskind argue there needs to be new business models for education:

‘It is widely recognised that there is insufficient funding available to run high quality schools and universities if teachers and professors operate in the traditional way.’ (p.208)

Revisiting the Role of the Teacher

Susskind and Susskind  argue that professional work should be 'decomposed', that is broken down into constituent ‘tasks’ and that a 'Process Analyst' should determine if these tasks could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional or indeed  by the application of technology (See previous blogpost for a summary of some of their key arguments). 

So what of teaching? Can teaching can be decomposed and the tasks either delegated to a 'Para-Teacher' or performed by the application of technology?

Teaching Decomposed

It is undoubtedly possible to break down 'Teaching' into a whole range of tasks. Indeed Governments and Trade Unions around the world have a range of views of what should be (and what should not be) the tasks that teachers do. It is difficult to find either a consensus or a list that comes without a political agenda. However, the US Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics (2015) Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is fundamentally an official careers advice site, lists ten 'duties' of a high school teacher which appear in most other lists:

Screenshot of US Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for High School Teachers (captured 17/03/2017)

Process Analysis of the 10 teacher tasks:

We then need to determine which (if any) of these tasks could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional or indeed  by the application of technology.

Is doing this task not getting the most out of a qualified Physics teacher?

One way to facilitate tackling this question is to imagine a school that only has one suitably qualified Physics teacher when it really needs three. The school leader might want to maximise the impact that the one Physics teacher has on the teaching of Physics across the whole school. Which of the following tasks would the school leader be able to delegate to a lesser qualified Para-professional (or non-Physics graduate qualified teacher)? Can any of the tasks be carried out by the application of technology?

1. Planning Physics lessons;
2. Assessing students to evaluate their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses in Physics;
3. Teaching students Physics in full class settings or in small groups;
4. Adapting Physics lessons to any changes in class size;
5. Grading students’ assignments and exams to monitor progress in Physics;
6. Communicating with parents about students’ progress in Physics;
7. Working with individual students to challenge them, to improve their abilities in Physics, and to work on their weaknesses;
8. Preparing students for standardized Physics tests required by the state; 
9. Developing and enforcing classroom rules and administrative policies; 
10. Supervising students outside of the classroom—for example, at lunchtime or during detention;

A Process Analysis might decide that 

1. Planning Physics lessons needs to be done by a Physics professional, However, the planning of lessons could be centralised and done by one person who ideally (but not necessarily) would be in the school.
2. Assessing students might be done in a number of ways including by professional judgment of a Physics teacher; by tests marked by the Physics teacher or by a Para-Teacher with a mark scheme; and by online adaptive testing.
3. Teaching students might be done in a number of ways including by a Physics teacher physically in front of a class or by video-conferencing; by online lectures; and through online courses.
4. Adapting Physics lessons might be done most easily by a Physics professional, but can also be done by adaptive online courses.
5. Grading students’ assignments and exams by professional judgment of a Physics teacher or by a Para-Teacher based on assessment and objective criteria; and electronically as the result of online adaptive testing.
6. Communicating with parents about students’ progress might be done through traditional means such as written subject reports or parent-teacher meetings, but might also be done through teachers have 'live' online markbooks which are available to parents.
7. Working with individual students is best done by a Physics professional.
8. Preparing students for exams might be done by revision lessons run by a Physics professional, but increasingly there are online revision resources (e.g. BBC GCSE Bitesize) and online self-testing programs.
9. Developing and enforcing classroom rules is not directly Physics related and could theoretically be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional.
10. Supervising students outside of the classroom  could be carried out by a less qualified Para-Professional.

Decomposition and the Question of Quality of Outcomes for Student Learning

The next step is for the Process Analyst to determine the relative quality of outcomes for student learning of these teacher tasks being performed by a qualified classroom teacher following the traditional model and the alternatives: the 'Para-Teacher' or 'Application of Technology' models. 

If we accept that Assessing Students might be done by a Para-Teacher with a mark scheme or by online adaptive testing. are these alternative models better/similar/ worse for student learning  than assessments conducted by a qualified Teacher?

Whilst the qualified professional is likely to be qualitatively better at conducting many of the teacher tasks, it is quite possible that there are circumstances where the alternative models may be better, particularly when we take the matter of scale into consideration. For example, a teacher may be able to produce personalised learning plans which address individual concerns and go at an appropriate pace for each student for a small number of students, but this level of differentiation may not be possible when teaching a large number of sets and with large class sizes. Conversely, an online adaptive course with built-in assessments might be able to provide personalised learning plans and assessments for thousands of pupils at a time.

And so . . . .?

As the statistics given at the start of this post suggest, we are already facing a challenge of recruitment of specialist teachers. Many schools are already having to explore alternative models to staff lessons in 'shortage subjects'. 

We have to recognise that the traditional model of a suitably qualified specialist teacher standing in front of a class of 30 pupils is a luxury form of education which most societies can no longer afford.

Although many in the profession recoil at the thought of revisiting our traditional classroom model, it is time to abandon our idealism and find a way of delivering the best possible form of schooling that is practically possible. The 'Para-Teacher' and the 'Application of Technology' are likely to have a significant part to play in the future of secondary education.