VSO Focuses on Senior Teachers

The international development charity VSO announced today that it was no longer recruiting newly qualified teachers for classroom vacancies overseas, opting instead to launch a recruitment drive for those closer to retirement.

The organization, which began sending volunteers overseas in 1958, when no formal teaching qualification was required, said the move was a response to the growing need of its partners abroad for teachers with training and management skills.

Five years ago, just 5% of VSO’s education placements included managerial responsibilities. Today, a typical volunteer works with colleagues in education ministries, teacher training colleges and local education authorities on areas such as national standards, curriculum development and school management.

VSO’s change of approach should also help to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000, which call for all children to have access to a quality primary education by 2015.

While some poor countries have committed to providing free primary schooling, many of their education systems are still suffering from years of under-investment.

With an estimated 5,000 headteachers in England aged 55 and over and approaching retirement, VSO hopes to persuade some to consider sharing their skills abroad.

The organization said it needed to recruit 372 headteachers and senior staff by Easter to meet its commitments to its overseas partners. However, VSO’s international programs director, Penny Lawrence, said she would happily recruit more. "We can take as many education managers as we can recruit as there is so much demand," she said.

"We are urging teachers who are retiring or looking to take a career break to consider sharing their experience as VSO volunteers."

She said many teachers in poor countries had only received a primary education themselves and inevitably needed support to stand up in front of a class.

James Aitchison, a secondary headteacher in Scotland for almost 20 years before he joined VSO at the age of 55, said the people he worked with in Uganda had plenty of skills but sometimes needed someone to "confirm the judgments they would make" and to provide them with a more systematic way of working.

Mr Aitchison flew to Uganda in September 2003 to work as a schools inspectorate adviser in the town of Masindi. For two years he and a colleague ran management and leadership training courses as well as inspecting schools.

"You have the skills to offer and you’re at a stage in your career where you’re still on top of your own job but perhaps need an additional challenge," he said.

Now back in the UK, he is working as a part-time manager of a project building educational links between Scotland and Malawi.

VSO volunteers are asked to commit to at least one academic year in a posting. Most jobs are in Africa and Asia. Some heads and deputy heads have been able to take a leave of absence from their jobs to join the organization.

All volunteers receive a living allowance, training, flights, accommodation, medical and health insurance, work permits and visas and national insurance and pension contributions.