Scholars of comparative education have given a lot of attention to the demand side of teacher labor markets. We have asked how do policies attract teachers into the profession and then retain and motivate them once there. Given the importance of teachers in learning, attracting and retaining the best teachers is of critical importance. The effects of these policies, however, are influenced by a prior question: who becomes a teacher?
There is still a limited understanding of supply side factors that lead teachers to enter, stay in, or leave the profession. This broadly includes factors that explain why someone becomes and remains a teacher such as their personal background, demographics, education, attitudes, values, and professional motivations. Understanding the supply side factors is important not just in their own right but also because of the implications they may have for other teacher related practices and outcomes of interest to policy. For example, will a teacher education and training program yield expected results? If we wish to increase incentive for teachers, what would be the best way to do so given who enters the teaching profession?
This panel brings together a series of papers that engage in these questions across a number of country contexts including Burkina Faso, Colombia, India, South Africa, and Vietnam. We begin to provide tentative answers to questions about teacher selection through the analysis of large scale quantitative data. We hope that conversations sparked by these papers can begin to establish a research agenda that asks not only how can we attract the best teachers, but who becomes a teacher and why?
Together, the three papers bring evidence to bear from a wide geographic scope around the central question of who becomes a teacher. The panel looks to generate discussion around how we can further understand teacher selection and retention, and draw cross-national comparative lessons for this emerging research agenda.
CIES 2023 - Improving Education for a More Equitable World
Comparative and international perspectives are essential to fulfilling the dream of educational equity. The CIES 2023 Annual Meeting will explore the following crucial questions: how should we critically look at and meet desired outcomes across time and space? What changes can bring about responsible and sustainable advancement in learning, teaching, and schooling? What implications may these changes have on individual systems, contexts, and the already vulnerable planet? And how may our endeavors help redefine comparative and international education in a way that reconnects it with contextualized educational policy and practice?
This interview was originally published by the UNESCO International Institute for Education Planning on 23 January 2023 prior to the International Day of Education.
17 goals and seven years left until the world reaches the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals for the people, planet, and prosperity. With the clock ticking, education must be prioritized to accelerate progress toward all the SDGs, especially amid growing inequalities and fast-evolving challenges.
On the International Day of Education, IIEP-UNESCO caught up with educational planners and decision-makers, to hear what is on their radar as the race to 2030 continues. Their testimonies also launch a year-long celebration of IIEP’s 60th anniversary and an opportunity to reflect on the future of planning education and learning for all.
Hailing from the Caribbean Island of Montserrat, Hyacinth Bramble-Browne is the Vice Principal of the nation’s sole Secondary School. She is also an educational planner and was the president of IIEP-UNESCO’s Trainees’ Association while she pursued a year-long training programme at the Institute in 2015-2016. She shares her vision of this important day for education.
International Day of Education matters to me because it serves as a scheduled time not only for me, locally – but all educators – to zoom in on the issues facing education while searching for solutions. This day ensures that we plan, and hold discussions aimed at finding solutions and at sharing good practices with our stakeholders while at the same time listening to what is taking place regionally and internationally. Hopefully, we will learn from the best practices shared and make positive in-roads in meeting the 2030 Education goals.
In my current role, I need to make sure that secondary education meets the needs of all students, and that we add value to each child. In Montserrat, our education system is inclusive and universal. All students come and there are no school fees for attending the public primary and the lone public secondary school. This means that as a leader, I must provide support for teachers to ensure that they feel confident and are equipped to deliver not only subject content but morale and social values to equip our students to fit readily into the world of work and to function effectively in higher education.
The world needs to invest in education because quality education pays value to each country. Research indicates that increasing the quality and standard of education in a nation increases its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even without that, an increase in education will have spill-offs in health, and other social sectors resulting in a higher standard of living for all. If we do not choose to spend the required funds on providing a quality education system fit for purpose, then we will find that we will need to spend the money on other social sectors like health, social services, housing, prisons, and so on.
Read all the interviews conducted by IIEP-UNESCO on what “Invest in people, prioritize education” means for planners and decision-makers here.
Photo credit: Hyacinth Bramble-Browne
Caption: Hyacinth Bramble-Browne Vice Principal of the nation’s sole Secondary School in her office.