Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools in England, has complained about a “brain drain” of teachers leaving the country to work abroad—and, as a teacher and now lecturer, I’ve known a number of colleagues who have made that choice. But let’s not forget the other looming type of flight: of teachers from the profession itself.
Wilshaw warned that 18,000 teachers had left the U.K. to teach in international schools last year, more than the 17,000 who trained via the postgraduate route. He suggested that teachers could be given “golden handcuffs” to keep them: “working in the state system that trained them for a period of time.”
I don’t agree. I think instead we need to improve the working conditions in the state system so that we persuade teachers to stay because they want to—rather than forcing them to.
