Teaching recruiters under fire at inaugural Commonwealth council meeting

Private agencies which recruit teachers for jobs abroad were accused of adopting “exploitative” working practices last week by members of a new Commonwealth education body.

The Commonwealth Advisory Council on Teacher Mobility, Recruitment and Migration, convening for the first time in the United Kingdom between 22 and 24 June 2010, heard how some profit-driven recruiters are taking advantage of migrant teachers partly due to a “vacuum” of regulation.

“We need to ensure all recruitment agencies are regulated,” insisted council member Dennis Sinyolo, a representative of Education International, a global teacher federation, in response to claims that some agencies charge high fees and omit vital information to prospective teachers on accommodation, working experiences and the transferability of qualifications abroad.

Mr Sinyolo called on governments to ensure that agreed Commonwealth standards for teacher recruitment are followed. “If there is no specific regulation, they [the recruitment firms] can do as they please – maximise their profits and exploit teachers. They are taking advantage of a vacuum,” he said, adding that there needed to be a “frank exchange” between the council, Commonwealth Secretariat, recruiters and governments.

A set of good practices

Set up in response to a call from Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting in Malaysia in June 2009, the eleven-member council is tasked with increasing awareness of the 2004 Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol, which sets out minimum recruitment standards such as clarity on employment terms and conditions.

Over the course of the three-day meeting at Stoke Rochford Hall in Lincolnshire, UK, expert witnesses from governments, academia, teaching organisations and educational institutions from countries including Africa, New Zealand and Barbados presented evidence to the council. According to their research, many recruitment agencies, teachers, and even government officials, are still unaware of the protocol.

Council member Bill Ratteree, a representative of the International Labour Organization, a United Nations body based in Geneva, said “big efforts” were needed to address this lack of knowledge. “[The protocol] is not binding on anybody, but is a set of good practices that should and can be applied,” he said.

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the UK’s National Union of Teachers, which hosted the meeting, said the new council, working with the Commonwealth Secretariat, had a “critical role” in improving understanding of the protocol among governments and recruiters.

She said: “During the meeting it became perfectly clear that the protocol is not well enough known within many countries and, at some level, within governments themselves. A general awareness raising campaign needs to be done to ensure that governments and all other stakeholders know about it.”

Shared responsibility

Blower added it was the “shared responsibility” of governments and recruitment agencies to prevent teacher exploitation. “We know of some agencies who definitely recruit on what we consider a false prospectus. Some are told that accommodation will be provided when they arrive. But when they arrive they are just given the address of a youth hostel.”

Dr Mehander Singh, a senior official from Malaysia’s Ministry of Education, said: “You cannot eradicate, but you can minimise exploitation. I will try to find ways to communicate to teachers who have intentions of working in other countries that there is this protocol.”

On the last day of the inaugural meeting, council members agreed the terms of reference for the council, which will meet annually, and issued a final statement requesting that the Commonwealth Secretariat formulate a work programme to promote the protocol’s implementation.

The statement also called on countries to implement a “regulatory framework” for recruiting agencies and urged improved data collection on teacher migration, the sharing of examples of best practices and model legislation, as well as the development of a feasibility study for an international “quality standard” for recruitment agencies conforming with the protocol.

Read the final statement:

Statement - Inaugural meeting of the Commonwealth Advisory Council on teacher mobility, recruitment and migration

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