2023 and Beyond: Recruitment in a Post-Pandemic World
The demand for international schools has recovered from 3 years of the Pandemic, with more schools open than ever before[i]. Most schools are looking to increase both the quality and quantity of staff and are attempting to shake off the after effects of pandemic-constrained hiring. However, schools are finding that, in contrast with most aspects of life now, the teacher recruitment landscape is anything but normal.
How has the Pandemic changed teacher recruitment?
In a 2022 survey by COBIS [ii], 91% of school leaders said recruiting quality teachers was “somewhat challenging” or “very challenging”. There are just not enough quality teachers and the shortage has worsened. Edvectus’ statistics show that since the pandemic, the number of western teachers entering the international school segment dropped by 40% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Initially this shortage was caused by people unwilling or unable to leave home. Due to global uncertainty and family demands, many more teachers than normal left their international teaching jobs to return home. This means that the ‘leaky bucket’ of international teachers was much leakier than ever and has not been adequately refilled for over 3 years. Now with the pandemic behind us, why are more teachers not applying?
Not enough teachers have been trained.
The largest western domestic teacher training markets of UK[iii], US[iv][v], and Australia [vi] have all noted a drop in teachers being trained since 2019. These source markets are unable to meet the needs of their own schools, let alone the international ones. The challenge is particularly acute at Secondary level.
In the UK, for instance, only 59% of the target for initial teachers trained was met in 2022-23, down from 79% in 2021-22. Causes point to a combination of wages that have not kept up with inflation, increased job-related stress, and a proliferation of remote-friendly, lower-stress jobs competing for the same smaller demographic of young graduates. STEM teachers are the scarcest. In the UK, only 17% of university teacher training enrolments for Physics and 30% for Computing were filled in 2022.
The situation is just as dire in the USA where culture wars, stress and stagnant salaries have had a significant impact on recruitment and retention of teachers. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics in February 2023, [vii]US public schools have been experiencing difficulties filling teaching vacancies for more than two full school cycles and many districts have turned to uncertified teachers, or those teaching out of field.[viii] In Australia the government created a National Teacher Workforce Action Plan in December [ix] to address the nationwide teacher shortage.
Changed attitudes towards risks and rewards
For those teachers who wish to be abroad, post-Pandemic attitudes towards the risk-reward equation of international teaching have changed. The risks of international teaching from closed borders, separated families and fragile health care systems to employer-weighted contracts and the risks of isolation have been thrown into sharp relief. Post-pandemic teachers are now more risk averse, leading to an increased focus on locations that are considered safe, predictable, and well known such as Singapore and Dubai at the expense of previous hot spots now viewed as personally and professionally risky such as Hong Kong, Russia and China.
Job hunting priorities have also shifted. In October 2022 almost three quarters of teachers surveyed by Edvectus indicated that financial benefit was the most important factor when finding a new job[x], above all other factors with the sole exception of safety and security. Millennials and Gen Zs, the 20 and 30 somethings that represent the bulk of new international school teachers, have faced increasingly stagnant wages and unaffordable housing costs at home. In the UK, the cost of buying the average home is now 8.5x the average wage, up from 5.9x in 2003. In the US, where teachers are doubly burdened by record breaking student loan debt, faced the reality that between 2020 and 2021 house prices exceeded inflation by 168%.[xi] These teachers are looking very closely at the bottom line to achieve their life goals, and schools that pay modest salaries despite the cost of living are losing out.
What can be done?
The economic and political landscapes that contributed to the ongoing teacher shortages are unlikely to change in the short term, and the leaky bucket of international teachers is yet to be adequately refilled. International schools should be under no illusion that the recruitment market has become more difficult than ever, and projections indicate that it will only get worse.
With teachers focussed on salary and financials, schools are advised to be more transparent about their offerings. Data from multiple sources indicates that advertisements that disclose salary get more applications than those that do not[xii] [xiii].
Schools need to rethink their recruitment processes to eliminate barriers to application, such as long application forms, poor communication with prospective candidates and lack of follow up. In a candidate-limited market the ‘shelf life’ of teachers is short, particularly for hard-to-fill STEM subjects, moderate feepaying schools and less popular locations so acting early and fast will be rewarded.
Hiring talented local candidates and training them in newer and relevant pedagogy and curricula can create a stable, less transient work force, and good middle leaders can be the key to a successful transition. Using multiple channels for recruitment earlier, including partnering with a small number of trusted and ethical recruitment agencies will allow schools to cast a wider net earlier. Finally, Boards should consider how the quality of their Senior Leadership Team can affect retention. If you lose fewer teachers, you have fewer to replace.
About the author: Diane Jacoutot, BSc, MBA is the founder and Managing Director of Edvectus, an international education recruitment company established in 2013. In addition to recruitment services for teachers and school leaders, Edvectus provides market research and guidance for client schools and teacher candidates to enable informed decision-making for the benefit of all.
[i] https://www.buila.ac.uk/news/2023/intl-schools-market-is-flourishing-isc-report
[ii] https://www.cobis.org.uk/about-us/research/teacher-supply-in-british-international-schools
[iv] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/us/covid-school-teaching.html
[vii] https://abcnews.go.com/US/map-shows-us-states-dealing-teaching-shortage-data/story?id=96752632
[ix] https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/new-help-for-schools-as-teacher-shortage-bites/281928
[x] https://www.edvectus.com/Content/Documents/2023_%20International_Teacher_Jobseeker_Survey.pdf
[xi] https://anytimeestimate.com/research/housing-prices-vs-inflation/
[xii] https://www.reed.co.uk/recruiter-advice/why-you-should-always-state-salary-in-your-job-ads/
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