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APPENDIX G

PART 2

Recruitment of Teachers

NOTE BY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

102 F

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There are four main requirements if teachers of the right quality are to be recruited for service in the Middle East in sufficient numbers. These are salaries, security of contracts, the assurance of suitable employment on return to the United Kingdom and the safeguarding of pension rights.

It is assumed that the responsibility for making financial conditions more attractive and for security of contracts would rest with the British Council, which is responsible for recruiting teachers. The Ministry of Education does not itself employ teachers in England and Wales nor does it pay their salaries and legislation would probably be needed to enable the Ministry to pay or supplement the salaries of teachers going overseas.

The British Council have stated that a major obstacle to recruitment at present is the fear that there may be difficulty in securing suitable employment in this country on return. It is not possible to deal with this problem as it is dealt with in a country like France where teachers are civil servants but there is much that can be done and the Ministry is very willing to help as far as it properly can.

Local education authorities and other employing bodies have already been urged to help by agreeing to the secondment of teachers seeking overseas service (Circular 170 of May, 1948, which was replaced by Circular 277 of July, 1954). Schools and institutions for which the British Council recruit staff are specifically mentioned in those circulars. On the whole the response by local education authorities to those circulars has been satisfactory and the majority are willing to take teachers back into their service after periods of service overseas, normally varying between two and four years. Some authorities, however, are unwilling to agree to secondment; in certain cases it is not practicable, e.g., where the teacher holds one of a very small number of specialists posts, or where the initial period of service is a long one. In addition teachers often do not desire secondment. There is also difficulty in arranging secondment where the employer is an individual school and not an authority.

It will be necessary to secure the co-operation and goodwill of the representatives of the employing bodies and teachers' organisations both in encouraging the fullest possible use of existing secondment arrangements and in devising supplementary machinery to help teachers who have not been seconded to find appropriate posts on their return to this country. The Ministry is ready to take the necessary steps in consultation with other Government Departments concerned, e.g., the Colonial Office and the Scottish Education Department. A useful analogy is the Joint Appointments Board of Teachers run by the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Education Committees which has been extremely effective in placing teachers who find difficulty in securing posts. The cost of a similar organisation with one full-time officer, which would be sufficient at any rate in the early stages, would be small and could be met by the Ministry under existing grant regulations.

Arrangements already exist for safeguarding pension rights of teachers going abroad after some contributory service in Great Britain. (The new Teachers Superannuation Bill will also cover those without previous contributory service in this country.) The normal maximum period of service abroad is five years but in appropriate cases this can be extended by the Ministry on an annual basis. These arrangements would cover the large majority of teachers and difficulty will only arise in the few cases where a teacher's service abroad extends substantially beyond five years.

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