Three years ago, the ESL/EFL world was looking very bad:
Jay Doubleyou: "this has been a dire, dire situation for the industry since the pandemic started"
Then things began to pick up - but things were not perfect by any means:
Jay Doubleyou: "the shortage of teachers is matched only by the surge in student numbers"
And so, the industry has sought to address this shortage:
Jay Doubleyou: how to attract and keep your english language teachers
Some are doing very well:
Fabio Cerpelloni speaks to Hadar Shemesh about the importance of teacher recruitment and retention for her school, Accent’s Way English.Seeing the person in front of you - E L Gazette
But even so, there are other shortages keeping back the industry:
Residential and homestay shortages stopped around 6000 students from enrolling in UK schools last year.UK: schools restrict enrolment due to bed shortages - E L Gazette
The latest E L Gazette looks at this problem, which isn't going away. Here are a few excerpts from an excellent, longer analysis:
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.
There is now a massive shortage of TEFL teachers across the world; indeed, a massive shortage of teachers of any subject. Isn’t this just a simple example of the law of supply and demand: if the supply falls, the price you have to pay will go up? And in some places, the pay has gone up. In the UK, London, Brighton and Oxbridge hourly rates have risen quite sharply but to little avail – the teachers aren’t coming back.
In most of the rest of the world, salaries have barely changed in more than a decade. Take the British Council network: in the last year or so we’ve seen their teachers in Taiwan join a Union because their pay hasn’t changed in 20 years, teachers in Portugal went on strike claiming their pay had increased only 1% since 2009, while in Japan, staff came out over the Council’s failure, after two years of negotiations, to bring their pension rights into line with local law.
While teachers earn a reasonable wage, it is job security, not income, which is causing the problem. And it is the demand for secure jobs that is preventing experienced teachers from returning to the sector. In London, for example, many ex-TEFLers have shifted into working as teaching assistants where their ELT qualifications give them a head-start. Their pay – though low at around £500 a week – is guaranteed, and their hours are regular, from 8:30 to 15:30. Lesson planning and marking is minimal, and while most TAs are unpaid eight weeks of the school holiday year, they can easily get TEFL work in the school holidays.
When the owner of ELC Bristol – one of the six schools in the country to get a perfect score on inspection – set out to find his teachers, they had all found permanent jobs. They wanted to come back to teaching, but would not accept zero-hour contracts. He took the decision to sell ownership of the school to the city’s top not for-profit independent schools so he could offer them permanent jobs. For the results of this endeavour, read the case study at the bottom of this article.
Will language schools have to follow their lead? In the UK, they may have no option. If the Labour Party win the next election they have to ban zero-hours contracts unless staff choose them. After working for 12 weeks, workers must be offered a permanent job based on the average of all working time undertaken, and not just ‘teaching hours’.
The teacher shortage: what’s it all about? - E L Gazette
There are groups pushing for a better deal for teachers:
Employment Rights – TEFL Workers Union
And meanwhile, the news reflects what might be significant changes for the industry:
Labour’s ‘new deal for workers’ will not fully ban zero-hours contracts | Labour | The Guardian
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