Teachers studied

Guy Mulvaney, a student at IMM Graduate School of Marketing, recently completed a post-graduate dissertation that found that South African teachers were being lured to England by unscrupulous British recruitment agencies. Mulvaney, a former teacher in London for five years, the companies are mainly targeting newly qualified teachers with no teaching experience and that the majority are not fluent in English. British agencies were not using structured interviews or screening processes when recruiting South African teachers. SA teachers were not informed about the challenges waiting for them at typical inner-city London schools. Eighty-six percent indicated they were not informed that they would not receive qualified teacher status, and because overseas teacher qualifications were not recognised in Britain, they were unable to get permanent jobs. However, the consensus was that teaching in London is attractive, with 89% content with living conditions in the city and 98% indicating they had made the right move. The major grievance of SA teachers in London is the extremely poor discipline of children, 87% rated it as the number one problem. Mulvaney found that 57% of South African teachers were impressed with the teaching resources provided by agencies and 67% were satisfied with training courses provided. He said there were between 3 000 to 4 000 South African secondary school teachers in London.