Page 10 - ELG2406 June Issue 490

NEWS FEATURE .

The teacher shortage:

what’s it all about?

In the ongoing teacher shortage, Melanie Butler takes a look at what is
driving practitioners both in and out of work.

hy don’t our teachers for more than four years normally the world; indeed, a massive teachers in Taiwan join a Union
come back? Whatever do have the right to redundancy shortage of teachers of any because their pay hasn’t changed
happened to loyalty?’ payment, as several schools found subject. Isn’t this just a simple in 20 years, teachers in Portugal
Wone UK school out when the UK’s TEFL Workers example of the law of supply went on strike claiming their pay
executive asked a woman who Union began filing bundles and demand: if the supply falls, had increased only 1% since 2009,
spent years involved in recruitment of claims at the Employment the price you have to pay will go while in Japan, staff came out
for a major global school group. Tribunal. up? And in some places, the pay over the Council’s failure, after
‘What did you expect?’ she has gone up. In the UK, London, two years of negotiations, to bring
snapped back. ‘You laid them all Salaries have Brighton and Oxbridge hourly their pension rights into line with
off during COVID and you didn’t rates have risen quite sharply but local law.
even have to pay them redundancy barely changed to little avail – the teachers aren’t Meanwhile, in Ireland, things
money because you had kept them in more than a coming back. are changing. The Labour Courts
on zero-hour contracts for years. In most of the rest of the world, are working on a pay agreement
Loyalty has to work both ways.’ decade salaries have barely changed in between Unite the Union and
In fact, under UK law, workers more than a decade. Take the employers, following outcry in
who have been on zero-hour There is now a massive British Council network: in the 2018 when teachers were left
contracts with the same employer shortage of TEFL teachers across last year or so we’ve seen their stranded at Christmas after their
10 June 2024