The International Schools Review Forum

I remember a couple of years ago lots of talk about there being an upcoming shortage of teachers what with all the new international schools opening etc.

Any news on that front? How's it been over the last couple of seasons? Any predictions for next year?

Hiring for 19-20 is pretty much over. There’s always a few left but the decent schools all did their big push months ago. We’re down to single, hard to fill spots, plus random sudden departures/no shows.
Numbers of schools are increasing but I haven’t personally noticed a shortage so far. Perhaps others have?

I read an article predicting a 24% increase in international schools in the next couple years, mostly in China.

There are still a good number of jobs posted at TIEonline. Many in China, which had had a lot of new schools open the last few years. Like Sid said though, most hiring is done. So these positions are likely in places where staff has decided to leave last minute, which often isn't a good sign. Seems like you can always pick up some job in China or the Gulf area fairly late, but it's not going to be the best school.

On the other hand, pursuing a career as an international school teacher seems to be gaining momentum. More and more teachers seem to want to do it and if that trend out paces new school openings, there could be a glut of teachers on the market.

I remember about 8-10 years ago my HoS telling me that when they went to job fairs they would have people in tears begging for jobs as they'd been laid off at home and needed to feed their families. We had a lot of teachers back then that didn't really want to teach overseas, but had to to put food on the table. They've mostly gone back to the states now.

Since then, I've read articles about teacher shortages in the US, UK, NZ, and even Australia and Canada. I was just wondering if there had been any knock on effect in international teaching?

The demand and need for ITs is increasing but only in the third tier and the substantial majority of that growth is in the lower third tier. The mid and upper tiers are very stable and its becoming more competitive as more ITs doing their time in the third tier want to move up, and finding there are fewer vacancies with more candidates for each vacancy. Yes a lot of ITs who got caught in the housing bubble and lost DE jobs moved into IE but the ones that didnt take to it have already recirculated back into DE.