Tag Archives: international education

Don’t forget Jacob

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At the end of January, this blog will celebrate its 10th birthday: a decade of writing. As of today, the blog has published 1,364 posts during those 10 years, with a total wordcount, according to WordPress analytics, of around 800,000 words, or around nine or 10 PhDs. Of course, blogs aren’t peer reviewed in the same way as academic articles are pre-publication, but, like journalism, they are subject to the gaze of readers from around the world. What I think are important posts are sometimes barely read, whereas other posts have been read much more frequently. The most read posts each year are listed below:

2022 Teacher Recruitment: How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy?

2021 Half of secondary ITT applicants in just 3 subjects

2020 Poverty is not destiny – OECD PISA Report

2019 How do you teach politics today?

2018 Applications to train as a teacher still far too low for comfort

2017 Coasting schools

2016 1% pay rise for most teachers likely in 2016

2015 Grim news on teacher training

2014 More on made not born: how teachers are created

2013 Has Michael Gove failed to learn the lessons of history?

The most read of these was the September 2020 post entitled ‘Poverty is not destiny’ that was read 1,544 times during that October and was read more than 1,600 times in all during the autumn of 2020.

Older posts can collect more ‘reads’ overall as new readers browse the back catalogue. Just before Christmas 2022, someone browsed the whole of the back catalogue, resulting in the highest monthly figures recorded for any single month since the blog started.

The genesis for the blog was the columns that I wrote for the then TES between the late 1990s and my retirement in 2011. I am lucky to have many of those columns in a presentation book created for my retirement.

This column has looked at numbers to do with education, mostly statistics, but also management information. Some of the latter has been provided by TeachVac, the job matching site I helped create and run some eight years ago.

There are a few other posts of which my, so far unsuccessful, campaign for a Jacob’s Law is the most important. This Law would ensure no child was left without a school place for longer than three weeks and is especially important for the many children taken into care. If we want to stop them becoming NEETs, we need to keep them in education not cast them aside because they might be a ‘bit of challenge’. Who would be a challenge if taken from home without any warning as a young person and moved to a different location away from friends and familiar locations and your school. (Search for Jacob for the various posts about this issue)

Please campaign to ensure a place for every child in a school. These young people are the education equivalent of the patients in A&E waiting on trolleys, but their wait can be six months, and just as life changing! Lt’s make 2023 the year the DfE tackled this issue.

Most frightening part of the White Paper?

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We will embed tutoring in every school

101. Government has invested £1 billion to establish the National Tutoring Programme. We will deliver up to 6 million tutoring packages by 2024, which when combined with our programmes to deliver tutoring for young people aged 16-19 equates to around 100 million hours of tutoring. Small group tuition has an average impact of an additional four months in primary schools and two months in secondary school, 63 and it is our vision that tutoring no longer be the preserve of families who can afford to pay for private tuition, but the right of any child in need of additional support.

102. We will continue to financially incentivise schools to provide tutoring – and we expect every school to make tutoring available to children who need it. Schools have the flexibility to use their own staff, bring in dedicated new staff or use external tutors from accredited organisations to provide high-quality tuition that best meets the needs of their pupils. Tutoring will be a core ‘academic’ option in the Pupil Premium menu. 63 Education Endowment Foundation. Teaching and Learning Toolkit. 40

103. From 2024, we will have cultivated a vibrant tutoring market, serving schools right across England. We will expect tutoring to continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using their core budgets – including Pupil Premium – to fund targeted support for those children who will benefit.

Opportunity for all – Strong schools with great teachers for your child (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Great idea, what’s wrong with it and why do you call it frightening?

My concern is that the consequences of this scheme might not have been thought through.

‘From 2024, we will have cultivated a vibrant tutoring market’. Not only do markets cost money to operate but there is also the question of where will these tutors come from? Will they come from the existing teacher workforce with teachers switching to tutoring from full-time teaching and, if so, where will their replacements come from?

The government does have an answer, but whether or not it has been agreed by the Home Office is another matter.

Paragraph 40 of the White Paper reads: ‘To make teaching here even more attractive to the best teachers from around the world, we will introduce a new relocation premium to help with visas and other expenses. This will be complemented by bursaries for international trainees with the potential to be brilliant teachers in priority subjects. By bringing forward legislative changes and introducing a new digital service, we will recognise high-quality teaching qualifications from all over the world in this country.’

Will the relocation premium be available to teachers returning to England after teaching in international schools or only to foreign nationals?

Fear not, there are other measures to boost teacher supply

 ‘We will therefore incentivise new teachers to work in places where they are needed most through our Levelling Up Premium. This will be worth up to £3,000 tax-free for eligible maths, physics, chemistry and computing teachers, in years one to five of their careers, who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in the new Education Investment Areas.’ (Paragraph 38).

Nothing about how to create more business studies, design and technology and geography teachers despite severe shortages in these subjects. Still there will be initiative to help engineers teach physics, and to improve the supply of languages teachers, although of which languages is not specified. The pledge for many teachers of Mandarin sees like something from a different age.

ITT will have more frequent ofsted visits, but seems to have escaped relatively lightly compared with some predictions.

A White Paper for an economic crisis. Reminds me of Education for All: A Framework for Expansion that was Mrs Thatcher’s attempt when Secretary of State for Education. That was scuppered by an oil price crisis.

iQTS: DfE delivers plans for 2022 pilot

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This week the DfE produced the document outlining the plans for its new international teacher preparation qualification.

The DfE document states that the iQTS is a new, UK government-backed international teaching qualification which will be recognised by the Department for Education (DfE) (via an amendment to regulations) as equivalent to English qualified teacher status (QTS). It will be delivered by accredited English ITT providers to trainees all over the world.

The DfE cites that the aims of iQTS are to be:

  • provide opportunities for accredited English ITT providers to expand into the growing international teacher training market
  • make high quality training accessible around the world, allow trainees to benefit from evidence-based ITT and allow schools to develop local talent
  • increase the global pool of quality teachers and support global mobility within the teaching profession

According to the DfE the iQTS is built on evidence-based English methods and standards of teacher training with contextualisation for the wide variety of settings trainees may be in.

To be eligible providers of the pilot must be:

  • approved by DfE to offer iQTS
  • already accredited to deliver ITT leading to QTS in England

Introducing the international qualified teacher status (iQTS) pilot – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Also according to the DfE, iQTS is suitable for candidates living outside the UK, including:

  • UK citizens currently working abroad who wish to start teacher training or develop their teaching career
  • non-UK citizens who wish to begin teacher training or build on existing teaching experience
  • UK and non-UK teachers without QTS who wish to improve their employability in England and internationally with a UK government-backed and approved professional qualification

iQTS will be recognised as equivalent to QTS by DfE, although at present that outcome is still subject to the will of Parliament, via an amendment to regulations. When approved by Parliament this will mean that iQTS holders will be able to apply to gain QTS in order to teach in England. Those who have successfully completed the iQTS qualification will be eligible to apply for the professional status of QTS through DfE’s system for recognising overseas school teachers for QTS.

Once awarded iQTS by their provider, if a candidate wishes to gain QTS they will apply to the DfE alongside other teachers who are already eligible for QTS on the basis of having an overseas qualification.

If the iQTS holder then wishes to teach in a maintained school or non-maintained special school in England, they will need to complete an induction period in order to work in a relevant school. They will be able to complete their induction either in a DfE-accredited British School Overseas (BSO) or in a relevant school in England. During their induction, they will be assessed against English Teachers’ Standards.

Providers who wish to offer iQTS will:

  • run their own application process,
  • set course fees
  • award the qualification at the end of the course provided all of the iQTS Teachers’ Standards have been met.

The pilot year will be used to test, learn from and iterate the framework. The DfE state it is their intention to make iQTS available to all interested accredited ITT providers by September 2023 after the pilot year is complete.

This announcement comes before this afternoon’s House of Lords debate on Initial Teacher Training. The government’s plans for the shake-up of ITT in England have yet to surface and it will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say in the Upper Chamber this afternoon on either the place of England in the global teacher preparation market or their plans for the home market.

Teaching in China: bright future or end of the road?

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How will the Chinese government’s ruling that International Schools in China must teach the same lessons as Chinese-run schools affect the market for international schools in China and as a result the demand for teachers from Britain? Westminster School abandons plans for sister sites in China amid concerns about communist curriculum (inews.co.uk)

At least one school seems to have scrapped expansion plans in China, and it will be interesting to see how other UK schools with investments in China respond. There is also the question of how those Chinese citizens that can afford private education will respond to the government’s decree. Will they embrace boarding school education and ship their offspring to British schools elsewhere in Asia or even negotiate places in the ‘home country’ original school of the brand or will they think that the brand will remain a draw even if the ‘hard curriculum’ is mandated by the Chinese government. After all, private schools teach the same A levels as are on offer for free in the state system in England but parents still pay large sums for their children to attend private sixth forms. No doubt class sizes will be a consideration for parents in China just as it is in England. Access to wealth buys access to smaller classes whatever is being taught in them.

The outcome of this policy change may have ripples in the labour market for teachers in England. Fewer overseas openings may reduce the ‘brain drain’ of teachers leaving this country.  Any closure of school sites overseas may well also see teachers returning to the UK. If their former employer feels a responsibility to offer them employment on their return, then the number of vacancies in the independent sector available for new entrants to the profession will drop. This ought to be good news for the state school sector as there should be more teachers entering the profession that would need to find a teaching post in the state sector.

Of course, if the Chinese pupils just migrate to schools outside of China, then the demand for teachers will remain at present levels, and the state sector will continue to see teachers leaving for more lucrative and less burdensome teaching posts overseas.

It is probably time for the DfE to research the international transfer of teaching skills. Writing that line reminds me that in September 1968 I attended a student-run conference on ITOMS – The International Transfer of Management Skills- organised by AIESEC. Do we now need to discuss ITOTS?

Of course, there are other teacher flows than just the one from England to the rest of the world. There used to be internal transfer within the African continent and between the Caribbean and the USA.

Teaching is now a global profession as the DfE has recognised with its new approach to QTS and how it can be obtained. Should England take the lead in setting international standards for teacher preparation much as it did in the market for English Language teaching Qualifications?

NfER review ITT landscape

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The recent review of the ITT landscape in terms of changes in applicant numbers and challenges facing the sector post the start of the pandemic is a welcome addition to the literature on this important area of policy. https://www.nfer.ac.uk/media/4143/the_impact_of_covid_19_on_initial_teacher_training.pdf

Regular readers will be reassured that, for the most part, the NfER report validates and expands upon the information already provided by this blog each month when the UCAS data are published. The additional information on placements and possible retention scenarios is to be welcomed. It is always welcoming to have my work backed up, if not endorsed, by such an important research body as the NfER.

Missing for the NfER paper appears to be any discussion about how the DfE ought now to handle the question of recruitment incentives in the current market? Should these be scaled back either to just those subjects where 2020 numbers miss the Teacher Supply Model projection of need or should they be abolished completely, especially if the NfER’s projections on retention are realistic? Indeed, should the DfE go further and impose recruitment controls on some subjects, at least for the first part of the 2021 recruitment round? It would have been interesting to have seen these policy issues aired in the paper.

At the APPG conference call yesterday, Lord Jim Knight of the TES suggested that the international school market might be more buoyant than the home market for teachers. Will demand from schools overseas attract those teachers currently without teaching posts, and thus absorb some of the over-supply in the market at present or will the risk be seen by young teachers are unacceptable in the present climate?

The DfE will have more data once it has let the contract for the survey of teachers. But, action may be necessary sooner rather than later if there is an early surge in applications for places on the 2021 teacher preparation courses through both UCAs and Teach First. I think we can assume that School Direct salaried as a training route has withered on the vine to a point where the very future of the route must be in doubt.

It is worth remembering that middle and senior leadership positions will be filled from the current stock of teachers. With several years of under-recruitment of new teachers in many subjects, and an increase in departure rates from the teaching profession, some middle leadership positions may remain a challenge to fill even when there are plenty of applicants for classroom teacher positions.

In the past, this situation has resulted in some teachers being required to take on middle leadership roles, often in challenging schools, too early in their careers. The DfE must be alert for this possible scenario to reappear, and work to prevent it. Making sure middle leadership preparation CPD is available is a prerequisite.

Managing primary head teacher vacancies is also an issue that should be on the DfE’s agenda. There are signs of pressure here resulting from the pandemic and pressures on workload of senior staff.

OECD Education Indicators at a Glance: 2020 Edition

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Each year the OECD brings together the most recent data about education systems. Originally it was just data from the OECD countries, but now the scope has widened to include some other countries. This allows for both a EU23 country average and in some cases a G20 average number to be calculated in many of the tables.

In this blog post, I look at three sets of data; age of teachers in primary and lower secondary sectors; the percentage of female teachers in these sectors and some data about class sizes.

The data for the home nations is aggregated into a United Kingdom statistics. This is despite, as pointed out in a previous post, education is a devolved activity and each constituent part of the United Kingdom takes its own decisions on education policy. However, they are not separate countries, and are viewed no differently than either German Land or French Departments by the OECD.

On the ratio of students to teaching staff in 2018, the United Kingdom still has one of the largest ratios in the table for the primary sector, at 20 pupils per teacher. Only The Russian Federation, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, of the nations included in the table, have larger class sizes. By comparison, the OECD average is 15 pupils per teacher, and the EU23 average is even smaller at just 13 pupils per teacher.  The United Kingdom figure comes after including the smaller class sizes often found in swathes of rural Scotland and Wales.

In the lower secondary table, the United Kingdom performs better. The average falls to 16 pupils per teacher, compared with an OECD average of 13 and the EU23 average of 11 pupils per teacher. Although the imbalance between staffing is of long-standing, it is smaller than a generation ago. It is to be hoped that as policymakers fully understand the importance of early education the gap will continue to close between the staffing ratios funded for younger and older pupils.

On the age distribution of teachers, the United Kingdom had the system with the highest percentage of teachers below the age of 30 working in the primary sector at 29% of the teaching force, and one of the lowest percentage of teachers older than 50 in the sector.  Young teachers are more recently prepared for the classroom, but less likely to remain there than older teachers.

The large percentage may partly be down to the rise in the birth rate that required more teachers to be hired as the increased number of pupils reached school age. By contrast, many western European countries, including Finland, had less than ten per cent of their primary teaching force in the under-30 age bracket in 2018.

The position is similar in the lower secondary workforce, with the United Kingdom again leading the way at 22%, with the second highest percentage of teachers in the youngest age grouping: only Turkey had a higher percentage. Indeed, the EU23 average was only nine per cent of lower secondary teachers under the age of thirty in 2018.

On gender, although we tend to think of teaching these days as a profession where women vastly outnumber men, and that is true, the data revealed that in 2018 the United Kingdom was close to the OECD average of 83% female teachers among teachers under thirty in the primary sector. The EU23 average for this group was 85% ,with a UK figure of 84%.  By contrast, in Austria and Italy more than 90% of their teacher under the age of 30 were female. In Denmark, the percentage was only 58%.

In the lower secondary sector, the international averages were a 68% of teachers under thirty being female. The United Kingdom were again similar to the averages with a figure of 66% for female teachers as a proportion of teachers under the age of thirty. Denmark again had one of the lowest percentages, but Italy had a much higher percentage of male teacher in the lower secondary sector.

There is more to be said about the difference in survival rates in teaching for men and women, and the relative lack of women in leadership positions, even after several decades of equal opportunities legislation.

Data on teachers’ ethnic backgrounds would also be useful, not least to know where and how well it is collected across the OECD countries.

The data was collected in a period of calm before the pandemic storm hit the world. What these numbers will look like in a decade if employment opportunities change is in the realm of speculation. Might the patterns be very different or might the journey to equal opportunities really be more firmly embedded in the labour market than ever before?

Will it be an ‘ill-wind’?

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At the start of half-term, TeachVac has recorded record levels of vacancies for teachers in the first six full weeks of 2020, compared with vacancy levels or the same period in recent years.  A proportion of the increase is no doubt down to the increase in pupil numbers that there will be this coming September. Although National Offer Day for admissions is still a few weeks away, I am sure that schools already have some idea of whether they will be full in Year 7 this autumn.

Indeed, I assume that new schools opening in September have received their Funding Agreement from the ESFA. If not, this is a policy issue the DfE might want to consider, since preventing such schools recruiting at the most opportune of times is not offering them the best start in life.

On the face of it, this is, therefore, going to be a tricky recruitment round if once again for schools seeking teachers. In part this reflects the lack of recruitment into training in some subjects, as well as the increase in pupil numbers. But, is there now a new factor in the equation?

What effect will the ‘coronavirus’ outbreak have on the labour market for teachers in England? Apart from the knock on consequences on the wider economy, and a possible economic slowdown that is always helpful for teacher recruitment, will the outbreak both deter some teachers from seeking overseas jobs, and encourage some of those overseas to return to the United Kingdom, and schools in England in particular? (As an aside, what, if anything, will the outbreak do for the flow of pupils and students from Asia into schools, colleges and universities in England this year?)

Now, it is too early to tell what the outcome might be of a change in attitude to teaching in Asia in general and China – including Hong Kong – in particular, and there are plenty of other parts of the globe where schools are keen to appoint teachers from England. However, even a small downturn in those seeking to work overseas and an upturn in ’returners’ will be a welcome outcome for the local labour market for teachers in England. It is indeed, ‘an ill-wind’.

TeachVac monitors activity on its site by geographical location on a regular basis. This is a somewhat imprecise methodology, since not all users reveal their geographic la location. However, the site has seen an upturn in activity from certain countries, when compared to this point last year.   So, perhaps we might see more ‘returners’ this summer?

Return to teaching: more needs to be achieved

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One of the issues that the DfE’s annual data about the school workforce always revives is that of what happens to those that train to be a teacher and either never teach in state funded schools or leave after a period of service. The data can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018

One side of this equation is concerned with retention rates, and that has been dealt with in an earlier post. The other side relates to the possibility or indeed probability in statistical terms of those teachers either ‘out of service’ or with ‘no service’ re-entering or teaching for the first time in state-funded schools.

Now this is not as straightforward an issue as some might think. A proportion of these teachers are certainly teaching, but not in state schools. Some are in further education, sixth form colleges, initial teacher education and private schools and are counted in the ‘other’ column where service is pensionable, but not in a state funded school. Others, and this may be a growing number, are teaching overseas in the schools offering fee-based education in countries where those with the cash don’t want to or cannot access the local school system. Occasionally, as in the case of the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam, these teachers might also be teaching in the state school system.

The rapid growth of such ‘international’ schools – at least in terms of their staffing – in China remains a concern as a potential drain on teacher numbers in England. Although it isn’t all one-way traffic.

Anyway, returning to the data, about half of ‘out of service’ teachers are older than 45, and thus less likely to return to teaching if still in the labour market. A few might do so, but large numbers of returners from this age grouping are unlikely. Among the younger age groups, some have deliberately decided to take a career break, often to care for young families or elderly parents. With good quality local ‘keep in touch’ schemes, and the sort of bounty paid to armed forces reservists for undertaking a period of professional development each year, this group can be an excellent source of additional teachers.

Although the DfE has managed programmes in the recent past to entice these teachers back into the classroom, the schemes have so far been derisory when compared with those initiated during former staffing crisis.

And what of the 17,000 or so teachers that gained QTS in 2015 and 216, but have no recorded service in state funded schools? How much has the DfE spent on following up what has happened to these potential teachers? Some will be teaching, but not captured in the data. Of those that aren’t teaching, what feedback can we obtain that would either improve their training, if that is the issue, or manage the labour market better to achieve optimum use of a scare resource in our teachers.

It seems daft that location specific career changers cannot be guaranteed a teaching post on successful completion of their training programme. This is surely a disincentive for some to switch careers, especially when they also have to pay tuition fees. Time for a Carter style Review of these issues?

Teaching as a global career

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Should the DfE set up a specific Unit to help teachers trained in England return from working overseas? They might want to work on this with the British Council. Recent data from research organisation ISC suggests that UK private schools are leading the charge into overseas markets, with several new schools established overseas this year alone by schools with headquarters in England. Many of these new schools will have a high percentage of UK trained teachers working in them.

In the past, the international school market was mainly a market serving expat communities, by providing a home country style education that allowed executives to take their families with them on overseas posting. This meant that they were secure both in the knowledge that their children’s education would be protected, and that their children would also benefit from a new set of cultural experiences, together with the opportunity to mix with others from a range of cultures in an increasingly global world.

However, in our increasingly global and digital world, the use of so-called international schools has changed. The pupils in such schools are now predominantly not the children of expats, according to ISC research, but mostly local children of parents than can afford to pay the fees in what are increasingly ‘for-profit’ schools. This raises the question, why should the UK, and England in particular, be supporting the staffing of these schools if we cannot provide enough teachers for our own schools? Making teaching in England more attractive as a career is an obvious way forward, but the DfE should also be examining how difficult it is for teachers that want to return from working overseas to find a job back home. Can more be done to assist these teachers in their quest to return and can more of them be helped and encouraged to return?

This is not an idle question, if the ISC research is correct. Such schools around the world are growing at a rate that will see the number of teachers working in them possibly approach the million mark before the end of the next decade. That’s double current numbers. I have long worried audiences at conferences by pointing out that an entrepreneur wanting to start a chain of new international schools could recruit the whole cohort of NQTs for a particular year. With India now expanding faster than China, and UK Education being highly valued in the sub-continent, the warning signs are there for all to see.

Maybe the DfE should now sponsor a return to teaching in England event in Dubai, a location where there are more than 300 English medium schools, many employing teachers from England. They might do the same event in China and even Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in India and Hong Kong.

I confess to an interest in this issue as TeachVac Global provides a recruitment service to these schools at www.teachvacglobal.com The TeachVac team has seen this growth in demand in the period that the service has been operating. At present TeachVac, www.teachvac.co.uk the free recruitment site for teachers and schools in England, is separate from the international site, but here is pressure from schools to be able to interact with the large number of teachers in England looking for jobs.

 

Don’t panic

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The publication of the TIMMS data on mathematics and science outcomes at Years 5 & 9 across a wide range of countries heralds the start of a period of data announcements that will include OECD comparative data and the Chief inspectors annual report; in thelatter case, the last by the present Inspector. As I am away next week – thoroughly bad timing, but needs must – my comments on these reports will have to wait for a while. However, the TIMMS national report for England can be found at  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/572850/TIMSS_2015_England_Report_FINAL_for_govuk_-_reformatted.pdf

Slow progress, with better results from the primary sector than the secondary sector might be one interpretation. Another, summed up in the findings is that:

  • Forty-six per cent of year 9 pupils in England pupils strongly valued maths: more than their peers in the five highest-performing countries.
  • Half (50%) of year 5 pupils in England very much liked learning maths compared to only 14 per cent of year 9s. In both years 5 and 9, three of the highest-performing countries – Japan, Taiwan and South Korea – had smaller proportions of pupils who liked learning maths than in England.
  • In both years 5 and 9 in England, and across all countries, on average, there is an association between all attitudinal factors and average achievement. For example, the more pupils feel confident in their maths ability; the higher their average achievement.

The message about the value of mathematics seems to now being heard and accepted in society, at least by young people. The next question is whether squeezing the last ounce of learning out of teenagers makes the process less fun? If so, does that have long-term implications for attitudes to learning, especially where the results are the outcome of longer time at school learning the subject and more tutoring hours outside of school? Is a balanced curriculum better than a narrow one even if results in some subjects are less than might have been achieved? That is not to recommend easing up on learning maths, but to place include it is a broader curriculum.

Whether the current level of success will continue in the next survey is open to question especially as:

Head teachers in England were more likely to report teacher recruitment difficulties and/or finding it hard to fill vacancies than in most other comparator group countries. About half of year 9 pupils were taught in schools with shortages in both subjects, while two-thirds (67%) of head teachers found their year 9 science vacancies somewhat or very hard to fill.

However, schools in England, despite media reports to the contrary are no longer the blackboard jungles they once were. The report states that the findings are:

The vast majority of pupils in England were taught in schools where head teachers reported hardly any problems with school discipline and which teachers reported to be safe and orderly. This compared relatively favourably against most other TIMSS countries. However, six per cent of year 9 pupils attended schools which teachers reported to be less than safe and orderly.

There is a lot more fascinating data in the Report, so it’s good to know that data skills are one we seem to do well. Not  a soft skill, but a valuable hard one.