Fair treatment for migrant teachers - new qualifications table opens the door

Like thousands of migrant teachers, Paul Miller was attracted to the United Kingdom by the prospect of gaining international working experience and greater earning potential.

In 2003, he left his job at a school in St Catherine, Jamaica, to take up a post at a technology college in south London.

Dr Miller, who has a postgraduate qualification in business administration, was persuaded of the benefits of upping sticks to England by the school’s head teacher after a chance meeting in the Caribbean. With six years’ teaching experience behind him, it had seemed a smart decision.

“I gave up everything – I had been a head of department in Jamaica,” he recalls. Yet just weeks after starting his new life, he was astounded to be told that he did not have the required qualifications to work as a professional teacher in England.

“I was bitterly disappointed,” he says, describing his newfound “unqualified teacher” title as a “terrible label” to apply to someone of his experience. With his school unwilling to sponsor the necessary training, Dr Miller was only legally entitled to teach for a maximum of four years.

Discounted qualifications

After nearly two years of searching, Dr Miller eventually found a new school willing to sponsor his enrolment on a part-time certification course. But he says the anxiety caused to his family and himself was a difficult cross to bear. “The psychological impact you can’t put a price on. To be branded an unqualified teacher with all that experience and training is not a nice thing.”

Fellow Caribbean teachers at the technology college whose qualifications were also discounted were not so fortunate. “I know colleagues who had half my salary,” he says. “I know colleagues who battled to get QTS [qualified teacher status] but ended up being cleaners in hospitals.”

According to Education International, a global teachers’ federation representing nearly 30 million teachers in 173 countries, Dr Miller’s experience is replete around the world. It is a “global problem”, says Dennis Sinyolo, senior co-ordinator for the organisation’s education and employment unit.

Teachers in South Africa

Pointing to South Africa, Mr Sinyolo claims that there are “not hundreds, but thousands” of teachers from Zimbabwe there unable to work as teachers due to the non-recognition of their qualifications. Experienced professionals who fled their country amid economic and political crisis today serve food in restaurants instead of teaching in the classroom, he insists.

“It is very painful and a waste of skills and resources,” says Mr Sinyolo, himself a former Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Union. “Most either opt not to teach because they can’t find jobs or opt to teach in private schools where the conditions can be horrible – they are on short-term contracts without full benefits, no pension, no job security and no job satisfaction.”

Mr Sinyolo states that many teaching organisations harbour the suspicion that governments around the world pursue deliberate strategies to protect their own workforces to competition from foreign labour. But with well-reported shortages of trained teachers in many countries, including the UK, he claims another factor may be coming into play.

“The suspicion is that their qualifications don’t meet local standards, which is not always the case. Qualifications differ from country to country – some might even be superior.”

‘Fair Trade for Teachers’

In countries around the world, understanding of the comparability of teaching qualifications between countries is “sporadic”, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Dr Akemi Yonemura, Programme Specialist at UNESCO’s Higher Education Division, explains that part of the problem is the lack of clear international guidance on the recognition of certifications. “If teachers choose to teach outside of the country they were trained in, their training can be totally wasted, especially when they are not informed of what is required to teach in the country,” she says. “If qualifications are only recognised by recruiters alone, some teachers may be exploited and their rights not respected.

“UNESCO published recommendations concerning the status of teachers in 1966 to address the issues of recruitment, responsibilities and rights, but to address the issues of international recruitment we need to do more to understand foreign qualifications.”

In 2004, the Commonwealth launched a Teacher Recruitment Protocol to establish ethical standards for international teacher recruitment and Dr Yonemura is supportive of the association’s work to improve understanding of the comparability of qualifications.

In particular, she welcomes a new study published this month (February 2010) by the Commonwealth Secretariat. The publication, Fair Trade for Teachers, for the first time establishes a country-by-country comparability table for the recognition of primary and secondary qualifications across 35 Commonwealth member states.

Commissioned from the South African Qualifications Authority, the comparability table categorises country qualifications in accordance with the UNESCO-developed International Standard Classification of Education. A working document, the Secretariat plans to regularly update the table with the help of participating countries to assist national qualifications bodies more accurately assess the value of foreign certifications.

“The Commonwealth has done some great work in awareness raising about ethical recruitment of international teachers and exploring the possibility of comparing teacher qualifications among different countries,” says Dr Yonemura, adding that UNESCO “should replicate” it for non-Commonwealth countries.

Nearly seven years after his move to the UK, Dr Miller is now a senior lecturer at a London university. He spent four and a half years as head of business studies and economics at his second school, in south-west London, and finished a part-time doctorate last summer, devoting his thesis to the subject of migrant teacher training. He, too, is supportive of the Commonwealth’s new teacher qualifications table.

Chalking up another success

“The comparability table is essential,” he says, “so people and institutions tasked with comparing qualifications can know what their qualifications are really worth. The UK [qualifications authority] may be good, but it can’t make determinations about everyone’s qualifications. Having a table will help with that so long as [the UK and other authorities] can access it.”

The table, adds Dr Miller, should become required reading for teachers thinking about moving around the Commonwealth. With access to it, he says a teacher could make a considered decision about giving up their job and moving to a foreign country knowing in advance that their qualifications may count for less abroad.

“It should be on the websites of ministries of foreign affairs and labour,” he insists. “They should put the information out there.”

As for Mr Sinyolo, he believes that the onus is now on Commonwealth member governments. “I hope that Commonwealth ministers of education will take this further,” he explains, “and make sure that the comparability framework is used as a basis for determining the relevance and level of qualifications required when a teacher moves from one country to another.”

Key Links:

• Education
• Country Profile: Jamaica
• Country Profile: United Kingdom

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