Commonwealth’s teacher recruitment guidelines cited as ‘excellent model’ for USA to consider

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has called on federal, state and local governments in the USA to introduce measures to monitor the recruitment of teachers from abroad.

These steps include: introducing ethical standards for the international recruitment of teachers; improving access to government data so that international hiring trends can be better monitored; and promoting international co-operation to protect teachers as well as the countries they are migrating from.

“We have to respect the teachers we bring to this country, and, at the same time, we have to address the root causes - low pay, unsafe schools, lack of administrative support - that make it hard to staff some of our schools,” said Randi Weingarten, President of the AFT.

These recommendations form part of a report - ‘Importing Education: Causes and Consequences of International Teacher Recruitment’ - which was recently released by the AFT.

The report found that:

- around 19,000 teachers working in the USA in 2007 had a temporary visa;

- there has been a steady increase in the number of overseas-trained teachers being hired in the USA;

- there appears to be widespread and egregious abuses of overseas-trained teachers; and

- there is almost no regulation of for-profit recruitment practices.

It also includes case studies to help further explain the situation in the USA.

In looking ahead to options which the USA could consider, the report cites the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol, adopted by Commonwealth education ministers back in 2004.

“This document ... serves as an excellent model of the type of standards needed in the US system,” the report states. “Sadly, in the United States, our education system is currently failing to meet this most basic responsibility.

“The Commonwealth Protocol offers a useful outline of the principles and the stakes of international teacher recruitment.”

The Commonwealth’s guidelines have already been adopted by all 53 Commonwealth member countries and in some non-Commonwealth countries as well.

The recruitment protocol aims to balance the rights of teachers to migrate internationally, on a temporary or permanent basis, against the need to protect national education systems, and prevent the exploitation of scarce human resources in small states and developing or low income countries.

Since 2006, the Commonwealth Secretariat has worked in collaboration with the International Labour Organization, a UN agency, and Education International, the umbrella organisation for teachers’ unions worldwide, to promote its use.

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