UK warned over teacher brain drain

A non-ministerial department of the UK government warns that thousands of British teachers are being lured abroad with lucrative pay packages as the country’s schools grapple with a recruitment crisis.

Head of the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) Sir Michael Wilshaw said elite public schools have been opening up branches abroad, leading to a boom in international schools.

According to Wilshaw, more people left the UK (18,000) to teach than trained (17,000) on English post-graduate routes.

His statements come after the government missed its teacher trainee recruitment targets for the past four years. This has led to shortages of teachers in most subject areas, and many schools are finding it hard to recruit staff, the state-funded BBC said. 

Sir Michael said it was not surprising that the demand for UK-trained teachers was soaring as English was the most common language used in the estimated 8,000 international schools, many of which follow a British-style curriculum.

He then quoted International School Consultancy figures which suggested 18,000 people had left the UK to teach abroad in 2015, although he acknowledged not all of these would have been fully qualified teachers.

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Despite the challenge of a competitive jobs market, the proportion of trainee teachers with a top degree has grown faster than in the population as a whole, and there are more teachers overall.”

The spokesperson went further adding that the number of former teachers returning to the classroom has increased year on year - further evidence of the popularity of the profession.

Meanwhile, ministers cited figures saying just a tiny fraction of teachers left the UK.

 A London-based commentator Chris Bambery says the British teachers find better conditions abroad in comparison with their own countries in terms of payment and working hours.

He went on saying that the austerity policy of the conservative government has made life harder for British teachers.

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