The International Schools Review Forum

Question for y'all...

What's the deal with locally-hired teachers at your school? My school enjoys a good reputation internationally (generally deserved). However, I have noticed the practice of frequently hiring local teachers to save money. That wouldn't bother me - obviously there can be great locally-trained teachers. However, more often than not, local-hired teachers are not qualified: no training and often NO EXPERIENCE teaching.

Is this common, even at higher tier schools? My school would probably be considered high tier two or tier one.

I've found most if not all my students hired some locals and one of the benefits for the school was cheaper salary and fewer benefits they had to give out. I sometimes wonder if in a big city where all the position could be filled by locals if the school would choose to do so. Why not?

I agree IF the locals are qualified. Schools shouldn't hire someone without a teaching credential OR teaching experience just to save some money.

Teachergal, the simple answer comes in two parts.
1) Some schools do indeed hire only local teachers. You and I don't hear much about them because we aren't what they're looking for.
2) Schools often feel that their parents expect a certain level of foreign staff. Schools suspect that parents believe it's an indication of quality, or international-ness, or language proficiency, or type of accent, or whatever. Whether there is any truth to any of that, I suspect very much varies from place to place, and on the quality of the local candidates.
I've worked with many local teachers and found them to be as any other group of teachers: running the gamut from awesome to useless.

LH ITs are much cheaper, they are paid on a local salary scale that is more aligned with the local economy than with OSH. I concur with @sid, there is a western demographic that many ISs adhere to. Either its a true IS and the parents expect westerners in their childrens classroom or its a local independent DS and western staff is an indicator of being international. Parents want their kids to go to western Unis meaning they need to be taught by western faculty.

Wrong again PG!
Local hires (assuming qualified teachers) are paid the same salary wise as other overseas teaching staff. The differences lies in the overseas benefits they miss out on. i.e. housing, flights etc.

Yantantether wrote:
> Wrong again PG!
> Local hires (assuming qualified teachers) are paid the same salary wise as
> other overseas teaching staff. The differences lies in the overseas
> benefits they miss out on. i.e. housing, flights etc.

not that i have seen!

v.

Then you are working in some shady bottom feeding schools!

Yantantether wrote:
> Wrong again PG!
> Local hires (assuming qualified teachers) are paid the same salary wise as
> other overseas teaching staff. The differences lies in the overseas
> benefits they miss out on. i.e. housing, flights etc.

That may be true in certain schools/countries, but it definitely has not been the case at the schools I've worked at. The disparity between local/foreign hire salaries can be massive in some schools.

My school has the same salary scale for local and foreign but they miss out on the housing stipend, which makes a sizable difference in what schools have to pay.

I also include locally-hired expats in local teachers - it seems like they are ESPECIALLY attractive to schools, even when they have absolutely no qualifications.

@Yantantether

No its not wrong, we generally use the term LH or Local Hire to refer to a western IT who is in the local labor pool. An Aussie in BKK teaching ESOL who is applying for a vacancy at a BKK IS is generally what is referred to as a LH. It may have not been clear from the post alone but the context of the thread was more aligned to that of a local Thai Teacher applying for a vacancy at an IS. In such a case a local teacher is likely to be on a salary scale that is more a aligned with the local economy other than a foreign or OSH candidate.

Ive adopted the nomenclature of LT to refer to a "Local Teacher" who is a native of the region, and modified the above post to reflect that convention.