It used to be the case, around a decade ago, that international schools were seen as “a free choice for people who had something to hide”, says Chris Seal, head of senior school at the Tanglin Trust School in Singapore. And then, as is unfortunately often the case, tragedy drove change.

In the UK in 2002, the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by school janitor Ian Huntley led to stricter vetting of those working with children; in international schools, the case of paedophile William James Vahey, who drugged and abused hundreds of pupils at international schools around the world, is seen as pivotal.

His crimes led to the formation of the International Task Force on Child Protection (ITFCP) in 2014, of which the Council of British International Schools (Cobis) was a founding member.

‘Sea change’ in international schools sector

The formation of ITFCP, Cobis chief executive Colin Bell says, “signalled a sea change across the international school sector in terms of recognising and reducing risk”.

Meanwhile, Seal - who has worked in international schools since 2017 and is poised to leave the sector and return to the UK next year - agrees “huge” progress has been made, but stresses that “the next step is a significant one”.

A lot of the “nuts and bolts” of safer recruitment are there, says Seal, who takes up the post as head of Stamford School in Lincolnshire from September 2025.

In many schools, he adds, crucial practices have now become ingrained, including: securing at least two references; carrying out police checks; having a single central register of all staff; and using standardised application forms, as opposed to “the old days of CVs”.

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Organisations such as Cobis, the Federation of British International Schools in Asia and British Schools in the Middle East have been instrumental in driving this change, he says.

The next challenge, Seal believes, is for these organisations to improve cooperation with each other and to ensure any school that falls below the required standard forfeits its membership.

Cobis says all schools that wish to apply for membership must meet “extremely high standards for safer recruitment of staff and more broadly for safeguarding of students as part of the daily practice of the school”. It “provides support and guidance to enable all schools to meet these high standards”.

Cobis also flags up the launch - just over a year ago - of the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition (BISSC), which brings together the groups Seal mentions, as well as others including the Association of British Schools Overseas and the Safeguarding Alliance.

Strengthening safeguarding ‘has no finish line’

However, Bell, as Cobis chief executive, is clear that strengthening safeguarding culture and practice is an activity that “has no finish line”.

Despite good practice across schools, he says “there is still significant work to do”. That view is echoed by a recent Tes survey and report, which found international schools “grappling with more concerns and reports than ever before” around safeguarding.

Bell says that BISSC has identified “clear gaps in international reporting mechanisms”. It is lobbying the British government to establish a clear process for recording and sharing details of individuals working across the international schools sector who have been dismissed on the basis of proven professional misconduct and safeguarding breaches.

Another area where work continues, he says, is “connected to all international schools recognising the unfaltering need for rigour and diligence when conducting criminal-background reference checks”.

For international schools, this process can often be onerous, requiring significant investment of time and resources.

International teachers have sometimes worked in several countries, meaning schools have to chase up police checks and references from all over the world. Police checks can also be difficult to access if a teacher has already left a school in a previous country.

Seal remembers the bureaucracy associated with leaving Thailand - where he had his first overseas post - for Singapore. He had to secure a police check before leaving; requesting one retrospectively is not possible. Even with the support of his “absolutely brilliant Thai PA”, it still took three separate appointments and then there was a further wait for the paperwork to arrive.

Schools must be prepared to say ‘no’

Irrespective of the difficulties, however, Seal says schools have to be prepared to say “no” to candidates who cannot satisfy requirements for references and police checks - even if this means they are understaffed at the start of the year.

His school benefits from an HR department with “the time and the resource to chase all this stuff up”. He concedes that for those without such support, it is “fiendishly difficult to make sure they meet all the safeguarding requirements”.

Then add into that mix teacher shortages - which are predicted to get worse, not better - and the pressure to find shortcuts becomes more acute.

A report published by Unesco in February found that teacher shortages were “a global issue, prevalent not only in developing nations but also in high-income regions like Europe and North America”.

It predicted “an urgent need for 44 million primary and secondary teachers worldwide by 2030” and stated: “This scarcity is not just a number: it is a crisis undermining educational systems globally.”

Seal says his school is fortunate - it is “one of the oldest international schools in the region” and attracts “lots of good teachers into Singapore”.

But the landscape can be tougher for schools if they are new or less well-known, if their geographical location is less desirable, or if they are offering less attractive salaries and benefits, says Mick Smith, Cobis director of accreditation.

Even leading international schools with good reputations find some posts tough to recruit to - just as they are in the UK - including maths and the sciences.

Another complicating factor for international schools is the impact of Covid-19.

Grant Gillies is head of South Morningside Primary in Edinburgh. He worked in international schools in Thailand, Qatar and Romania before returning to Scotland with his family in 2022. He says the pandemic prompted a lot of teachers working overseas to return home.

Hard to find high-quality teachers

Research published by Cobis in 2022 revealed that 91 per cent of British international school leaders - almost 600 took part in a survey - found it challenging to recruit high-quality teachers.

Senior leaders also reported changes in the profile of applicants for international school jobs as a result of the pandemic. This included a decrease in applicants moving from the UK.

Still, Seal says he hears from colleagues that “the Dubai market is flying”. Gillies was head of primary and senior vice principal of Doha College in Qatar and was getting 400 applications per teaching post - a tax-free salary of £3,500 a month was quite the draw, he says.

However, for teachers returning from the international sector, it can be hard to get their careers back on track in the UK.

All the difficulty of carrying out background checks applies when they attempt to return home and their international school experience can be written off.

“A lot of people in state schools don’t acknowledge that time abroad as beneficial or challenging,” says Gillies. “There’s a real anomaly about that recognition of service abroad.”

He argues that experience overseas should be seen as a major positive, which often is not the case just now.

Promoting international opportunities

For its part, Cobis is keen to point out this would not just have benefits for international schools. Promoting the international opportunities of a teaching career could also attract more people into the profession, at a time when universities are struggling to fill places on teacher education courses, with “a positive effect on teacher supply both domestically and internationally”.

Teaching is often sold as a vocation - a profession where you can earn a decent living, but where the real pull is the satisfaction of making a difference and improving lives.

But the picture Gillies paints of his time in Thailand is also compelling: a house with a private pool, driving to and from school on a motorbike and picking up fresh mangoes on the way.

Yet, while giving teachers such opportunities - by facilitating movement between countries and sectors - is hugely important, protecting children is paramount.

Over the past decade, difficult conversations about why international school communities are vulnerable to abuse have been brought into the open and that honest discussion has made the sector safer. The challenge over the next decade will be to keep that momentum going.

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