KCC goes to other side of world to bring in teachers

Exodus of staff produces recruitment crisis

Kent County Council has turned to New Zealand to recruit teachers to fill its school vacancies.

Education chiefs travelled to Christchurch in October to interview 26 primary and secondary teachers. Twelve teachers were offered posts.

The news comes as the county council revealed there are 40 head-teacher vacancies in Kent.

A report due to go before councillors this week says schools without heads have what is described as “robust interim leadership arrangements in place”.

This includes being supervised by an executive or interim head teacher, and KCC says it is confident the schools are still being led well.

But it acknowledged recruitment continued to be a challenge in the face of large numbers leaving the profession.

A research project the council conducted also revealed parents and pupils who were surveyed did not regard teaching as an aspirational career.

It suggested teaching was seen as underpaid, undervalued and stressful.

Cllr Roger Gough, KCC cabinet member for schools, said it was clear Kent, along with most parts of the country, faced challenges when trying to attract teachers.

“Clearly, there are pressures and people often ask whether headship is the right thing,” he said. “It is worth remembering that it is 40 schools without a head out of 600.

“It is not that high a number. There is no doubt, though, that it is a bit of a challenge with recruitment and retention right across the profession.”

He accepted many parents preferred to see what he called visible leadership but there were a variety of ways to do that.

On the initiative to recruit staff from abroad, he said: “We have always looked to recruit more widely even though the bulk of our teachers come through local recruitment.

“But we have had examples of casting the net more widely and over a number of years recruited from Ireland.

“There is always a case for doing that but what we do see is that there is an issue with recruitment in the public sector and there is pressure in certain parts of the county.”

‘It is a bit of a challenge right across the profession