The government is looking at how it could boost schools’ international recruitment to plug teacher gaps amid a deepening teacher supply crisis, Tes has learned.
In a presentation shared with the Department for Education’s recruitment and retention expert advisory group, seen by Tes, officials revealed that the DfE wants to discover how it can help schools boost efforts to recruit more overseas teachers, and is seeking advice from experts on how it could make that happen.
It comes after Tes revealed last year that the department was set to refresh its 2019 recruitment and retention strategy for a post-Covid world.
The government documents from December’s meeting also revealed that, as of last month, publication timings for the strategy update were yet to be agreed after it emerged in November that ministers had asked for publication of the strategy to be delayed.
Officials updated the expert advisory group in December that they were taking time to include the implications of wider teacher recruitment and retention policy work, such as evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body and recommendations from the Workload Reduction Taskforce, following the ministerial intervention.
The government missed its target for recruitment of secondary teacher trainees for this year by 50 per cent, according to data published last month.
Meanwhile, the number of state school teachers leaving the profession hit its highest rate in four years in the academic year 2021-22, with 1 in 10 (43,997) recorded as having quit the classroom.
In the DfE presentation to experts last month, officials also acknowledged the workload implications of international recruitment and revealed that they were looking at ways to reduce burdens on schools and providers from overseas hiring processes in order to increase the numbers of schools that “can take advantage of this increased supply”.
In the slides, the DfE added: “We are focusing on helping schools make the initial short steps that can make them more likely to recruit internationally.”
‘Substantial hurdles’ for international teachers
Melanie Renowden, chief executive of the National Institute of Teaching, told Tes it was right to “explore all options to improve teacher recruitment and retention” amid a “very challenging teacher supply” situation.
She said that a “thriving domestic workforce and a profession that can compete with alternative graduate employment” is needed “above all”, but that international recruitment could “potentially play a valuable role is in providing a small number of well-trained international teachers in the subjects, areas and phases where gaps remain”.
Ms Renowden said she welcomed the government focus on a “lack of a clear national picture on international teacher education, recruitment and employment”.
“There are substantial hurdles for international candidates, schools and training providers, and costs can be prohibitive. More joined-up thinking, analysis and research on the entire recruitment and deployment process are needed to identify successful practices and support good decision making,” she said.
Ms Renowden added that more support for “new to England” qualified teachers as well as better coordination between government departments and dealing with barriers over skilled worker visas, particularly in shortage subjects “would all help”.
“Ultimately, though, what matters with international recruitment is that schools benefit from highly skilled teachers who stay for long enough to give a return on the investment of recruiting, training and deploying them, and that these teachers are supported to succeed in their careers.”
However, she warned that “pouring more international candidates into the start of the initial teacher education recruitment process won’t necessarily achieve this” and cautioned against “taking our eye off the need for investment to ensure teaching is an attractive profession for UK candidates - or underplaying the importance of creating the conditions so our existing teachers choose to stay in the classroom”.
DfE could reduce international hiring red tape
Dr Jeffery Quaye, national director of education and standards at the Aspirations Academies Trust told Tes he welcomed the focus on looking at ways to support schools to source teachers from overseas.
He also called on the DfE to “reduce the red tape” surrounding the international hiring process.
He added that he would like to see the government develop “a database of prospective teachers, who have been vetted based on a required standard, to be available for schools to use as a recruitment source, which would help schools to “reduce the costs linked to any international recruitment of teachers”.
Dr Quaye said such support would be vital for smaller multi-academy trusts looking to hire overseas, whereas larger trusts have already been investing in international recruitment programmes.
However, Dr Quaye said it was important that the government also focused on growing the domestic teacher “talent pool” and did not “just use international recruitment to solve the recruitment crisis, particularly in secondary schools”.
He added that he believed international recruitment should be used by schools only as a “short-term response” when a local candidate could not be found.
Teach First CEO Russell Hobby said the main barrier facing his organisation as an initial teacher training (ITT) provider was that the teacher training programme runs over two years, but the standard graduate visa is 24 months exactly “so it isn’t long enough”.
Mr Hobby said “allowing international applicants who want to pursue teaching a little extra time to make it through the programme would help solve this issue”.
He added that streamlining the visa process for international trainees “would provide schools with more clarity and assurance when hiring those from abroad”.
Focusing on international recruitment is ‘a cop-out’
Members of the group were asked for feedback on how the DfE could better support the pipeline of trainees into secondary shortage subjects, and better support and train non-specialist teachers to teach them.
In November, government figures revealed that the number of international candidates applying to ITT providers had rocketed by more than 300 per cent year on year.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned that the DfE should be focusing on “putting home-grown teachers in front of pupils” as a “fundamental responsibility”.
“We need to be making the moral case to young people that being a teacher is one of the most important ways to make a real difference,” he said, adding that, while “we’ll always welcome the expertise of teachers from overseas”, a DfE focus on international recruitment “is a bit of a cop-out in terms of its responsibility”.
Commenting generally on the role of international recruitment in solving the teacher supply crisis, Steve Rollett, deputy chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: “International recruitment is an important part of some trusts’ people strategy.
As well as helping them to recruit subject specialists it can help to support a diverse and multicultural workforce.
“However, international recruitment is not an alternative to the need for the government to develop a recruitment and retention strategy that appeals to homegrown talent. This is an urgent priority.”
Evaluation of what’s working needed first
The DfE already has several existing policies aimed at boosting international teacher recruitment.
Non-UK trainee language and physics teachers can receive bursaries worth up to £28,000 for languages and physics, or scholarships worth up to £30,000 for French, German, Spanish and physics.
Last year, the government announced that it would offer non-UK trainees and teachers of languages and physics £10,000 to relocate to England as part of a pilot scheme.
Meanwhile in 2022, the government outlined plans to boost teacher recruitment by encouraging candidates from any country in the world to apply to teach in England.
Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said that the statistics in recent years show an increase in international teacher trainee applications.
He said a boost to international recruitment could be seen as positive “as part of a wider strategy” but felt there needed to be an evaluation of how well current efforts were working and whether they represented good value for money.
The DfE said any update to its recruitment and retention strategy would focus on domestic supply.
