Top PDF Teacher Recruitment and Retention in Select First Nations Schools

Prior to consideration of our study into the salient teacher recruitment and retention issues in select First Nation schools, it is essential to understand the broader context informed by historical factors in the delivery of Western education services for and within First Nations communities. Since the arrival of newcomers, the delivery of Western education services for First Nations students has been a matter of both concern and ongoing conflict (Charters-Voght, 1999). The British North America Act of 1867 (see Creighton, 1970) created two separate education systems in Canada: (a) provincial authority for education within their boundaries, and (b) federal jurisdiction for First Nations education. In 1876, the federal government enacted the Indian Act which outlined Canada’s administrative responsibilities for First Nation education. Constitutionally, First Nations were excluded from developing and delivering educational policy and practice for their own people (White & Peters, 2009). This formal and legal exclusion resulted in the development of distinctly European, ethnocentric education systems for First Nations people that “reflected the European linguistic and religious beliefs of the settlers” (Carr- Stewart, 2011, p. 75). Residential and missionary schools became the standard model for educating and assimilating First Nations students (White & Peters, 2009): Such colonial initiatives constituted “dramatic failures in policy” that precipitated significant challenges (Steeves, 2009, p. 22).

In a 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey, Ingersoll (2006) found 58 percent of all schools reported at least some difficulty filling one or more teaching job openings, in one or more fields. According to that same survey the following were cited as reasons why teachers leave the profession: retirement, school staffing action, family or personal reasons, to pursue other jobs, and teachers’ dissatisfaction. It should be noted that teachers’ dissatisfaction accounted for 50 percent of those leaving. Guarino, Santibanez, Daley, and Brewer (2004), in their paper for the Rand Corporation, A Review of the Research Literature on Teacher Recruitment and Retention wrote “in the face of a growing school-aged population, schools and districts must struggle to maintain standards for teaching quality while continuously recruiting bright new teachers and seeking to retain their most effective existing teachers” (p. 1). As a result, school districts must develop a plan to attract, hire, and retain the most qualified and most promising educators for their students.

The report stated that maintaining teacher supply had become more difficult in recent years and that this is “particularly concerning” given that demand for teachers is expected to rise as a result of increases in pupil numbers. It added that relative pay trends, whereby “significant gaps” had developed between the pay of teachers and the earnings available in other gradate professions, are “important contributory factors in the recruitment and retention problems facing the teaching profession in England and Wales.” While noting that pay is not the only factor affecting teacher recruitment and retention, the report argued that “a competitive pay system will help schools to maintain the effective workforce of good teachers and school leaders…”

The report stated that average teacher salaries “remain considerably lower for teaching than other graduate professions.” It added that trends in teacher recruitment and retention “continue to face substantial pressures”, with the number of qualified teachers leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement continuing to rise, teacher retention rates deteriorating, and the number of schools reporting vacancies and temporarily-filled posts increasing “markedly over the last five years.” There is a “real risk”, the report stated, that the cumulative impact of these factors will mean that schools “will not be able to recruit and retain a workforce of high quality teachers.” The report noted that this was a particular concern given the projected increase in pupil numbers.

The report stated that maintaining teacher supply had become more difficult in recent years and that this is “particularly concerning” given that demand for teachers is expected to rise as a result of increases in pupil numbers. It added that relative pay trends, whereby “significant gaps” had developed between the pay of teachers and the earnings available in other gradate professions, are “important contributory factors in the recruitment and retention problems facing the teaching profession in England and Wales.” While noting that pay is not the only factor affecting teacher recruitment and retention, the report argued that “a competitive pay system will help schools to maintain the effective workforce of good teachers and school leaders…”

The report stated that maintaining teacher supply had become more difficult in recent years and that this is “particularly concerning” given that demand for teachers is expected to rise as a result of increases in pupil numbers. It added that relative pay trends, whereby “significant gaps” had developed between the pay of teachers and the earnings available in other gradate professions, are “important contributory factors in the recruitment and retention problems facing the teaching profession in England and Wales.” While noting that pay is not the only factor affecting teacher recruitment and retention, the report argued that “a competitive pay system will help schools to maintain the effective workforce of good teachers and school leaders…”

The report stated that average teacher salaries “remain considerably lower for teaching than other graduate professions.” It added that trends in teacher recruitment and retention “continue to face substantial pressures”, with the number of qualified teachers leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement continuing to rise, teacher retention rates deteriorating, and the number of schools reporting vacancies and temporarily-filled posts increasing “markedly over the last five years.” There is a “real risk”, the report stated, that the cumulative impact of these factors will mean that schools “will not be able to recruit and retain a workforce of high quality teachers.” The report noted that this was a particular concern given the projected increase in pupil numbers.

We are also working with ITT providers to increase part-time ITT to complement our wider work to increase part-time working in schools. We know that there is a significant pool of potential teachers willing to move to England. In line with the government’s white paper on the future skills-based immigration system we will focus on the very highly skilled and those migrants who bring the most benefit to the UK. The government remains committed to reducing net migration to sustainable levels. The Home Secretary has commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to review the Shortage Occupation List. This will now include consideration of whether there is a case for extending the teacher occupations that are on the Shortage Occupation List beyond maths, physics, general science,

The Department has missed its recruitment targets for the last 4 years and there are signs that teacher shortages are growing. By taking a national view of the number of teachers required, the Department risks paying too little attention to clearly meaningful local patterns of supply and demand. The Department does not yet have the information it needs to understand how different routes into teaching impact on schools’ ability to recruit and retain newly qualified teachers, and cannot yet demonstrate how new arrangements are improving the quality of teaching in classrooms. The Department has plans to analyse existing data further. However, until the Department meets its targets and addresses the remaining information gaps, we cannot conclude that the arrangements for training new teachers are value for money. The Department will also need to show that the arrangements are more cost-effective than alternative expenditure, for instance on improving retention. 110

Teacher Attrition in a Northern Ontario Remote First Nation: A Narrative Re-Storying Teacher attrition rates in Northern First Nations communities are estimated to be as high as 40% annually. (Anderson, Orton & Horwick, 2004; Kitchenham & Chasteauneuf, 2010; Mueller, Carr-Stewart, Steeves & Marshall, 2012). This statistic is critically important in the discourse of First Nations education because “teacher recruitment and retention, closely connected with teacher efficacy, are considered as causal factors that influence the quality of student learning and educational achievement” (Mueller et al., 2012). First Nations organizations also have identified teacher attrition and retention as an issue requiring further attention (Chiefs of Ontario, 2004; Assembly of First Nations, 2012). Stability in the teaching force is especially important in the First Nations context because the relational ontology of Indigenous ways of knowing and learning (Ermine, 1995; Simpson, 2000; Wilson, 2007) makes trusting relationships central not only between teachers and students but also with parents and communities as a whole. Furthermore, the problem of teacher retention has assumed new urgency since the Aboriginal population is quickly growing, with a large portion being school-aged children (Statistics Canada, 2008). This demographic reality will compound and magnify issues of teacher attrition and, ultimately, the greatest impact will be felt by students.

Education in Canada is generally considered to be within the exclusive domain of the 13 provincial and territorial governments. There are numerous statements or writings from politicians, textbook authors, federal and provincial governments, researchers, newspaper columnists, as well as education organizations that state unequivocally that education in Canada is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces and territories. Some statements indicate that the federal government has no constitutional role in education. Such misinformation and beliefs have had severe consequences for First Nations as Canadians absolve federal inaction in First Nations education because “education is a provincial responsibility.” However, education in Canada is the constitutional responsibility of both the federal and provincial/territorial governments. This article examines the federal government’s constitutional responsibility in education, as well as the consequences of the misinformation.

The inverse nature of the phenomenon of burnout makes it easy to understand and remediate. Besides putting several checks on the performance of teachers, the available resources and ease at workplace provided by schools are sufficient to ensure the high performance of teachers (Pietarinen, Pyhalto, Soini, & Salmela-Aro, 2013). When the personal factors, administrative factors, and environmental factors were separately correlated with three dimensions of burnout, it resulted in showing varied degrees of relationship. Personal factors were highly correlated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. It is due to the expectations of teachers from their jobs in form of being given with ease, chances of professional development, and assigned with only relevant work in schools. The more the personal factors are in favor of teachers, the less they feel emotionally detached and depersonalized at job. It implies to create chances of training for teachers to cope with stress at personal levels so to make their jobs less exhaustive. Administrative factors were found correlated with the overall score of burnout of teachers. This degree of relationship signifies the value of adequate resources within school system that discourages exhaustion and encourages fulfillment of tasks. By providing defined roles on job, teachers perform at their best(Gonzalez, Brown, & Slate, 2008). The environmental factors were found low correlated to depersonalization, personal accomplishment and to overall burnout scores. The low relationship with environmental factors indicates some improvement in the schools at public sector, but yet the need of making schools as resourceful places exist where the issues of lack of facilities do not prevail.

• A school and/or program that offers specialized learning themes for students who have unique interests.. • Students have over 114 unique programs to choose from.[r]

Since the study was only carried out in Mombasa County the researcher recommends that a similar study be done " in other Counties to examine challenges facing school- based teacher r[r]

Rinke (2008), in an analysis of the research literature, spoke to the dichotomy apparent in beginning teacher attrition literature between locating the problem of attrition within individuals (e.g., individualized conceptions such as burnout) or within contexts (e.g., contextual conceptions such as support). Even though these areas have a close relational interaction, they are, at times, treated as separate. Rinke called for future research that inquires into both contextual conceptualizations and individual conceptualizations in a simultaneous way. Flores and Day (2006), in their Portuguese study, noted that the complex negotiation of identity includes both individual and contextual factors. Although studying individual and contextual conceptualizations in a separate way may be easier, it does not frame the problem in a way that takes beginning teachers’ whole lives in all their complexities into account. Discounting personal lives, and failing to study the personal lives of beginning teachers, because they are messy and immeasurable will continue to leave important data uncovered.

PreMeR Consortium proposed recruitment and retention activities that integrate community. 359[r]

That all of the students dedicated themselves to the GED program every day, all day, for close to three months before attendance became an issue is nothing short of miraculous, and speaks to their character and will to continue against all odds. These students are people to be admired. That Tracy was backed by her educational and experiential background and tried her best should not be disputed. That Tracy was guilty of encouraging the students to engage with Foucault’s relationship between knowledge and power, knowing that the time frame was likely far too short for them to pass their GED exam is another paper for another time. One cannot help but wonder what long-term effects were experienced by the five students who wrote but did not pass the exams—another failure in their life experience. Certainly, despite being offered additional tutoring without program supports, the students did not return with the same level of motivation that they had displayed early in the program. In fact, the last four tutoring sessions leading up to their supplementary exams were unattended. This observational data alone indicates that the process of being asked to do too much, too quickly, shut down their willingness to further engage in any knowledge/power interactions from that point. Foucault (1980a) argued that power is something that needs to be constantly performed rather than achieved. When asked to study the exam banks, eight of the informants no longer saw themselves as participants in power sharing. For these informants, all engagement necessary to perform was ultimately seen as futile. This study needs to be disseminated because the community likely did not understand all of the elements involved when they agreed to implement the GED program. If funding is the impediment for a program length that will better promote knowledge/power acquisition for First Nations adult learners in similar circumstances, both the funders and the communities need to be informed.

This paper reports on research designed to investigate recruitment and retention problems for estates and facilities staff within Trusts. It begins with a brief review of relevant literature looking at Schlesinger and Heskett's model of a “cycle of failure” that perpetuates high levels of staff turnover but also at how this might conversely be interpreted as a cycle of success. We also comment on research emphasising the importance of a sense of altruism or public service ethos to staff working in public sector areas such as the NHS. We describe the use of focus groups as the principal instrument for data collection and go on to discuss the results of these in terms of four emerging themes. We conclude that recruitment and retention is complex with issues that vary from Trust to Trust as well as by geographical location and across different staff groups. The research, however, did also uncover a number of

This chapter answers the first part of Research Question 2: What do headteachers think about their role? Survey and interview data from serving heads and teachers are used to highlight the demands entailed in leading a school. The data reveal the paradox in the experience of headship: it is simultaneously a stressful and rewarding role. Teachers’ perceptions of heads’ commitments closely mirror those of heads. The data reveal that heads describe their job as emotional work. The privilege of being able to make a difference to the lives and learning of children often comes at a high price: long hours worked with an impact on health and feelings of loneliness. Factor analysis reveals that heads devote significant time to personnel and strategic leadership. They are also shown to perform numerous “other” activities for which they are accountable, although these are not necessarily part of their job descriptions. In small schools particularly, where the number of staff involved in management and support is small, the impact of such demands is significant.

A significant proportion of the academic FE workforce are often recruited from craft or occupational bases - well recognised professions in themselves. Such people may adhere to their expertise and may be reluctant to embark on teacher training programmes (see literature review). The survey indicated a mismatch between the need for new staff to have particular credentials – particularly teaching qualifications, skills and experience – and the availability of those attributes among new recruits. All colleges said they were providing assistance to enable staff to obtain a teaching qualification. This took the form of the payment of tuition fees, which was almost universal, and, in most colleges, remission from learner contact hours of three hours on average for full-time staff and two hours for part-time. Some of the colleges visited had adopted the additional approach of replacing some classroom teaching duties with tutoring, in order to reduce the preparation and marking burden on new recruits. Others had reviewed the delivery of their teachers’ training to facilitate trade professionals to acquire the qualification. The revised training was more ‘hands on’ and designed to reflect previous experience.