South African teachers in England :call for participants in a research project
Earning good money, the buzz of living in London, the undisciplined school children, the well-resourced schools… These are some of the messages that teachers in South Africa hear from their colleagues who are teaching in England. We don’t know how many South African teachers are teaching in England, but there are at least a few thousand. Some teachers who are well into their careers go over looking for a new challenge and the opportunity to earn good money in pounds. Some of them take their families with them, while others send money back to support their families in South Africa. Other teachers are newly qualified and go to London for the experience and the opportunity to travel using the pounds earned from being a supply teacher.
But exactly how many South African teachers are teaching in England and why do they go? How does the recruitment process work? Do teachers come back to South Africa after a few years, with new skills and experience, or do they stay and make a new life in England? What is the economic cost to South Africa given the cost of training teachers that subsequently leave the country to teach elsewhere? Are these teachers contributing to the ‘brain-drain’ and does their leaving contribute to a shortage of teachers in South Africa, particularly in key areas like maths and science? Should there be policies that stop countries like England from actively recruiting teachers?
These questions are the focus of a research project led by the Centre for Comparative Education Research at the University of Nottingham in England. The study is interested to know more about teacher mobility in the Commonwealth, with a particular focus on Jamaica and South Africa as ‘sending’ countries and Botswana and England as ‘receiving’ countries. The study is funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) in Britain, which is concerned that the international flow of teachers could be undermining the quality of education in developing countries.
The study is hoping to get information about teacher mobility through the data bases of teacher unions and the recruitment agencies. Questionnaires will be given to teachers who have moved from one part of the Commonwealth to another, asking them about their reasons for leaving, their experiences of teaching in England and about their career plans. Questionnaires will also be sent to a sample of schools to establish how many schools have experienced the loss of teachers to England, and what the implications have been for the school. There will also be interviews with teachers, education officials and principals of schools who have ‘lost’ teachers to England.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Education, Training and Development in Pietermaritzburg is the South African partner in this research project. If you are a South African teacher who has taught in England, and you are interested in being a part of this study, we would be pleased to hear from you. Please fax or email us your name, address, school address, telephone number, fax number and email address, with a short description of how long you taught in England and where you taught. We will send you a questionnaire to complete.
Fax to C. Bertram, Teacher Mobility Project on (033) 260 5080 or email [email protected].