Next week the great and the good in music education will meet at the MusicMark Annual Conference in Liverpool. Regular readers of this blog will know of my concerns for the future of music in state schools. Removal of the bursary for trainees not lucky enough to be on a salaried programme; reduction in the training numbers; parts of England with few training places, and the closure of undergraduate music courses potentially affecting the future pipeline for new trainees are all matters for concern.
If ensuring enough trainees to teach music in our state schools wasn’t challenging enough, state schools also face competition for the private school sector. Many secondary schools in that sector seem to have weathered the imposition of VAT by the Labour government, as the preparatory school sector seems to have found falling pupil numbers in the age groups they serve plus VAT too much for some schools.
Even if the challenge to state schools from the private sector in Egland is not growing, there is now the challenge presented by private schools overseas. How concerned should the sector, and state schools in particular, be about demand from that sector for teachers of music.
This year, I have been tracking vacancies posted by state schools for music teachers and subject leaders, either on the DfE vacancy job board or the tes job site. As of today, DataforEducation has logged just over 600 schools advertising a vacancy for a music teacher. This has ignored music services and vacancies for peripatetic staff. Most are full-time posts, but there are part-time opportunities and, at this time of year, a number of temporary vacancies to cover posts resulting from a teacher taking maternity leave.
Today, I looked at the vacancies for teachers and subject leaders in music posted by schools outside of the United Kingdom on the tes job board – obviously there are no overseas vacancies on the DfE site – and found 64 posts advertised. So, on one day in November, vacancies for teachers of music by international schools equal to more than 10% of the annual total of vacancies posted by state schools in England appeared on just one job site.
The table at the bottom of this post shows where these jobs were located. The three dominant locations are the UAE, and especially Dubai; China and Thailand. There were five jobs in Europe and only one post in the whole of the Americas. Interestingly, there were no vacancies advertised by schools in the Indian sub-continent on the job board today.
Now some of these posts will be filled by teachers from other countries where English is the lingue franca and where the school system is similar to the UK or US systems of schooling and their curriculum and examination systems. However, these vacancies are aimed at teachers in Egland that are job hunting.
Should the DfE take the demand from these overseas schools for teachers into account when constructing the Techer Supply Model that underpins the training numbers each year? I don’t know, but I do know that the situation needs monitoring in order to identify the level of possible music ‘brain drain’ from our schools, and the state schools that are most likely to be affected?
| COUNTRY | PLACE |
| CAMBODIA | |
| CAMBODIA | |
| CANADA | |
| CHINA | BEIJING |
| CHINA | BEIJING |
| CHINA | GUANGDONG |
| CHINA | GUANGDONG |
| CHINA | GUANGDONG |
| CHINA | GUANGDONG |
| CHINA | GUANGDONG |
| CHINA | GUANGXI |
| CHINA | HUBEI |
| CHINA | LAIONING |
| CHINA | SHANGHAI |
| CHINA | SHANGHAI |
| CHINA | SHANGHAI |
| CHINA | SHENZEN |
| CHINA | ZHEJIANG |
| DOHA | |
| GERMANY | |
| GERMANY | |
| HONG KONG | |
| HONG KONG | |
| HONG KONG | |
| KOREA | |
| KOREA | |
| KOREA | |
| LAOS | |
| MACAO | |
| QATAR | |
| QATAR | |
| QATAR | |
| RUMANIA | |
| SAUDIA ARABIA | |
| SINGAPORE | |
| SINGAPORE | |
| SPAIN | |
| SPAIN | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| THAILAND | |
| UAE | ABU DHABI |
| UAE | ABU DHABI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | DUBAI |
| UAE | SHARJAH |
| UAE | |
| UAE | |
| UAE | |
| UAE | |
| UAE | |
| UAE | |
| VIETNAM | |
| VIETNAM | |
| VIETNAM | |
