'Turning the tap on and off': the recruitment of overseas trained teachers to the United Kingodm: Olwen McNamara, Sarah Lewis and John Howson

A common strategy employed by wealthy industrial nations for dealing with short-term skill deficits is to recruit internationally; such was the case, around the millenniu, when a teacher supply crisis occurred in the United Kingdom (UK). That immediate crisis is now over; yet irrespective of peaks and troughs, international teacher migration is steadily rising and the trend looks set to continue. Despite this, little quality information on multinational movement is available to inform workforce modelling. Apart from the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol, little systematic consideration has been given to strategically managing migration to be of positive benefit to all stakeholders, and in particular to meliorating the impact upon the vulnerable source countries. This article reports findings from an empirical study carried out in the period 2001 to 2006 which triangulated perspectives of overseas trained teachers, head teachers, policy makers, teacher supply and recruitment agencies and key stakeholders from source countries. The teachers, the majority of whom were recruited from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, were both older and more experienced that is customarily thought. The study found the impact of recruitment policy and practice on the resources and workforce of source nations to be extremely varied and to involve a complex nexus of factors.
From: Perspectives in Education, Vol. 25 (2), June 2007, pp. 39-54