Teachers who move to England from overseas play a “key role” in helping schools to fill vacancies, according to recent government research. So why is it so difficult for them to train and teach here?

A Tes investigation reveals that international trainee teachers are sleeping in libraries and resorting to foodbanks to survive the costs of training in England.

Many are then struggling to find jobs after completing their training - even amid a national teacher recruitment crisis.

With tens of thousands of pounds being spent on supporting individual trainees through bursaries, the difficulties that trainees from overseas are facing need to be overcome to avoid huge amounts of public money being wasted and teacher shortages being exacerbated, university-based initial teacher training (ITT) providers are warning.

Here Tes reveals the extent of the challenges being faced by international trainees, their providers and the schools that employ them.

What obstacles are overseas trainees facing?

A recent Department for Education-commissioned survey identified some of the recruitment challenges for schools and international teachers.

It showed that international teachers play an important role in helping schools to fill vacancies, and are attracted by the prospect of career progression and high-quality education.

However, schools face barriers in recruiting them, with 60 per cent of international teacher trainees and teachers surveyed by the DfE saying they could not get a teaching job.

And, while studying, trainees can face severe financial pressures that government bursaries do not always alleviate.

International teacher trainees pay on average £15,000 to study in the UK, compared with £9,535 for domestic students, but this can vary widely between providers.

The higher prices are often due to the increased cost of onboarding, says Rob Campbell, senior lecturer in science education at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, as well as the need to fund teams to support trainees with visas.

Bursary students also have to self-fund their first few months of living in England until they get their bursary in October.

“To be able to afford that, they need to take out loans, pay for transport costs, accommodation, bills, course fees, with just £10,000 per year. That’s ambitious, especially in London,” says Campbell.

“A lot of schools were not even letting me apply. There is something that is not working here”

The international relocation payment, which was designed to cover these initial fees, was cut last year.

Juliette Claro, a lecturer in secondary languages at St Mary’s University, tells Tes that these financial pressures can leave trainees struggling to find affordable rent.

The university has been forced to open up its library for international teacher trainees to sleep in because they had “nowhere to go”, says Claro.

“We also opened undergraduate accommodation two weeks early so the trainee teachers can stay there before the undergrads move in,” she adds. In addition, the university provides supermarket vouchers and a food bank.

One international teacher trainee studying in Birmingham, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells Tes that the money they have left after study fees, rent and living costs are subtracted from their bursary means their income “falls below the poverty line”.

Philippa Baker, a senior lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University, echoes their concerns.

“A lot of these trainees have left their families and have experienced huge upheaval. One of our trainees lost his daughter but he could not afford to take a break to go back home,” she says.

“There are barriers at the start and barriers at the end - ITT providers are in the middle trying to sort everything out.”

‘I came here with great hopes’

While the government does not have data on the number of international teacher trainees who secure a job at a school, concerns raised by providers and the trainees themselves suggest that this could be a significant problem.

An Institute of Physics survey of initial teacher education centres found that more than half of the current cohort of 242 international physics trainees are still looking for schools to sponsor their skilled worker visas. They represent 20 per cent of all physics teacher trainees this year.

Nkemdilim Emeh, a languages trainee at the University of Portsmouth after moving from Nigeria, struggled to find work once she achieved qualified teacher status (QTS).

“Finding a job that will sponsor you is difficult. Plus, not all jobs will sponsor you for the entire two-year period of being an early career teacher, so it can mean you have to find another job halfway through,” she says.

“I came here with great hopes and aspirations,” Emeh says, adding that “the next steps are not entirely clear”.

Fellow Portsmouth student Irene Perez Bernet, who is from Spain - where she worked as a teacher - had similar difficulties in getting a school to sponsor her.

“A lot of schools were not even letting me apply,” Perez Bernet says. Out of 130 relevant jobs advertised in the UK, only two were able to sponsor her.

“There is something that is not working here. We have to find all the information by ourselves, but it keeps changing,” she says.

Costs and training barriers for schools

If the benefits of hiring international teachers are clear, and there is interest from overseas applicants, why are more schools not hiring these candidates?

The costs are likely a major factor. A sponsor licence, which involves a school sponsoring a trainee’s skilled worker visa, can be between £700 and £2,637, depending on whether the school passes additional costs on to the teacher.

Louisa Perkins, international director at King’s Group Academies, a trust of 14 schools, agrees that employing international teachers can be “cost-prohibitive”.

She says there are many “nuances” to sponsoring a visa and the trust has now employed an immigration adviser to ensure that no errors are made. Such mistakes, Ms Perkins warns, can be “costly”.

While she says her trust is focusing more on international recruitment to increase diversity in its schools, she adds that it can sometimes be a “hard sell” with headteachers because “it is expensive to do”.

There can also be challenges in providing additional training to international teachers.

The government provides no centralised training in areas like safeguarding and behaviour to prepare incoming international students for the British education system.

Instead, this is left to providers, which can lead to an inconsistency in the type and extent of training offered.

Gemma Piper, CEO of The Park Academies Trust, which has eight schools, notes that teaching in a different culture can be a “real challenge for individuals”.

While the trust offers its own training to teachers in this position, she adds that this is an “additional drain on our resources”.

A cycle of ‘train, qualify and go home’

These problems do not appear to be putting off applicants from overseas, however.

The number of international teacher trainee applications is rising, particularly for bursary subjects such as languages and physics.

As researchers noted in the DfE survey report, international teacher recruitment has “historically helped to cover teacher supply shortfalls” - and this looks set to continue.

So why do the issues outlined here matter?

Firstly, not knowing how many teacher trainees are dropping out means that the government may be spending a significant amount of money on supporting individuals who do not actually enter the teaching workforce.

The Institute of Physics has estimated that if half of this year’s cohort of overseas physics trainees do not get jobs, it will represent a “wasted cost to the taxpayer of around £4 million in teacher training bursaries”, based on the £31,000 scholarship each receives.

Hari Rentala, head of learning and skills at the institute, warns that this would be a “huge loss to the school system and a major blow to the government’s plans to address teacher shortages”.

And Claro is similarly concerned by a cycle of “train, qualify and then go home” that she fears is negatively impacting the trainee experience and risks exacerbating the recruitment and retention crisis and wasting taxpayer money.

Some also worry about the reputation of English schools and providers. After all, there is a “moral issue” if people have come here with the “promise of a career in English schools” and are then unable to find jobs, warns Helen Bowhay, director of initial teacher education at the University of Nottingham.

“We have been doing a lot of work to support schools. But the paperwork and costs involved [in international teacher recruitment] are just too onerous - especially for smaller schools,” she says.

Immigration reforms add uncertainty

Despite the government’s recent intention to boost international recruitment, it is clear that many challenges remain.

So what can ministers do to improve the situation?

While the government does provide guidance to schools on recruiting teachers from overseas, schools and providers tell Tes that rules can change quickly, meaning the guidance isn’t always up to date.

Both Perkins and Claro also warn that not enough information and guidance is provided to applicants either.

Perkins suggests that the DfE could put together a central website for international applicants, including information on all course fees and living costs, as well as a list of schools that are willing to sponsor a visa.

The government could also do more to make applicants aware of both the costs of training in England and the different visa routes available, Campbell adds.

“It is not clear what the costs are, and providers can’t provide accurate guidance as a result - we are always playing catch-up,” he says.

However, there are concerns that planned immigration reforms could exacerbate the situation, with international trainees on a graduate visa only able to stay in the UK for 18 months, rather than two years, after their studies finish.

This change could impact teacher trainees’ ability to complete the full two-year early career teacher induction period.

“It would mean we may not be able to finish our qualification journey, making our investment of time, effort and finances feel uncertain,” the Birmingham-based teacher trainee warns.

It is clear that many schools would benefit from recruiting international teachers, not just to fill vacancies but also to increase students’ experiences of being taught by people from different backgrounds and cultures.

Will overseas trainees be given more financial support, and, once they are qualified, will schools be able to employ them without jumping through so many hoops?

A Department for Education spokesperson says that work has “already begun to deliver on our pledge to recruit an additional 6,500 expert teachers and re-establish teaching as an attractive, expert profession”.

“We will continue to work to ensure that the very highest-skilled teachers, wherever they are from, have the opportunities to work in English schools to deliver excellence everywhere for every child,” they add.

You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get Tes magazine on iOS and on Android