6th Commonwealth Research Symposium on Teacher Mobility, Recruitment and Migration

Next Steps in Managing Teacher Migration

Location: UNESCO Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Date: 8-9 June 2011

Since 2006, the Commonwealth Secretariat has brought together researchers and policy-makers from government, academia and civil society to share data about teacher mobility, recruitment and migration across the Commonwealth.

The sixth symposium was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and UNESCO-IICBA under the broad theme of Next Steps in Managing Teacher Migration and focused on two specific areas:

• the provision of high-quality inclusive education in difficult circumstances, including the role and status of refugee teachers and the issues surrounding forced migration of teachers; and
• learning from the implementation of existing teacher recruitment protocols to help improve their future implementation and the design of new ones, using a case study to look at needs, issues and practicalities.

The overall objective of the symposium was to share research on issues affecting teacher migration so that policymakers are equipped with the latest evidence to guide them.

Proposed topics included:

• Teachers and forced migration
  • the scale and nature of forced teacher migration;
  • cross-border recognition of teachers’ status, qualifications and rights regarding employment as a teacher;
  • the relationship between migrant teachers, access to education for children and the quality of education for children;
  • migration management to ensure that host country education systems are not negatively impacted, that the immigrant teachers’ rights are respected, and that the potential benefits of migration are maximised.
• Teachers and migration in general
  • the scale and nature of migration;
  • the factors pushing or pulling teachers into migration;
  • the recognition of teachers’ qualifications;
  • data collection mechanisms;
  • migration management systems.
• The Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol (CTRP) and its implementation in Commonwealth member states
  • identification and analysis of the issues which encourage or discourage implementation;
  • case studies which demonstrate how effective current mechanisms of managing teacher migration are, and the issues arising from them;
  • identification of how needs and approaches to managing teacher migration compare between Commonwealth countries and African Union countries;
  • recommendations for concrete actions which will accelerate and strengthen the uptake of the CTRP.
  • The teacher recruitment protocol for Africa
    

Participants included representatives from ministries of education, international organisations, civil society and research organisations.

If you would like further details about the symposium:

• contact Jonathan Penson, Education Adviser - j.penson@commonwealth.int | tel: +44 (0) 20 7747 6289 | fax: +44 (0)20 7004 3645