Around the world, education systems grapple with the issue of teacher recruitment. More specifically, education experts ponder how to train high-quality teachers, how to attract the best educated to the teaching field, and how to retain them. In Australia, education officials identified the problem of recruiting quality teachers when officials felt that they were losing good teachers in certain parts of the country and were not getting new ones of the same caliber. To alleviate the problem, they decided to look overseas to recruit teachers.
Many reasons led to Australia's decision to recruit foreign teachers, including the loss of top-notch math teachers to the private sector. The Australian reports in the March 2009 article "Math in Crisis as Teachers Go Private" that about 40 percent of senior math teachers do not have a degree in math as required. Also, not only are teachers not studying math, but students are also opting out. The articles says that student enrollment in Year 12 advanced mathematics has dropped 20 percent since 1995, which raises concern that these losses will eventually undermine Australia's engineering and technology sectors in the future. To provide students with highly qualified math teachers, Australia began looking beyond its borders.
Throughout Western Australia, dozens of well-educated teachers are coming from England, Poland, Zimbabwe, and other foreign locales to combat the shortage of quality educators. About 81 foreign teachers signed up to teach in Australia, and there were still more than 100 vacancies to be filled. Most are teaching in rural areas where it is especially hard to recruit educators, and they often teach K–12 and at the university level as well, The Australian reports in the 2009 article "Overseas Teachers Here to Help End Shortage."
"There's been a concerted effort from the Department of Education to recruit teachers from overseas," Sate Education Minister Liz Constable told Kalgoorlie Miner in the article "New Faces Come from Far and Wide to Teach in Goldfields." Constable, who says the measure has been particularly helpful for staffing rural areas, has spent time with the new teachers ensuring that they feel at home and get settled into their new position of providing Australian students a quality education.
For the teachers, Australian's initiative presents a new opportunity to serve high-needs schools and to increase student achievement in a different environment. This challenge can be extremely exciting. Jaspal Singh, who moved from London to Kalgoorlie in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, discusses his experience withKalgoolie Miner. "I fell in love with the place, the people, and the weather," he said. "When they offered me a position in Kalgoorlie it was too good to turn down."
Resources
To learn more about Australia's Plan to Resolve Teacher Shortages read the following:
Trounson, A. (2009, March 4). Math in crisis as teachers go private. The Australian. Retrieved April 16, 2009, from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25136016-601,00.html
O'Brien, A. (2009, January 16). Overseas teachers here to help end shortage. The Australian. Retrieved April 16, 2009, from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24918998-5013404,00.html
Rynne, N. (2009, February 17). New faces come from far and wide to teach in Goldfields. Kalgoorlie Miner. Retrieved April 24, 2009, from http://www.nexis.com