Teacher Recruitment: "The ten month ordeal that most international schools avoid talking about." By: Maria Margie Angelis

As an academic director of Saudi international schools, one of my primary responsibilities was to recruit native English-speaking teachers from abroad. International schools usually begin recruiting new native-speaking teachers from abroad starting from December of the previous year for the upcoming academic year in September.?

Recruiting board meetings of an international school system ( a company comprised of many schools) usually begin in late November, where board members meet to discuss the recruitment of native-speaking teachers for the new upcoming academic year.?

Recruiting board meetings are difficult to follow because they entail many calculations, scenarios, projections, and complicated discussions/arguments. "For what purpose?" you may ask? And the answer is:"To calculate the number of new teachers that have to be hired for the new upcoming academic year." Although this may sound like a simple thing to do, it is not because the deciding factors involved are numerous and quite complicated. To be a recruiting board member, you must have experience with international school education, excellent math skills, a vivid imagination, impeccable communication skills, a collaborative personality, patience, and thinking outside the box.

Factors to be considered are :?

Number of hours per week that each subject will be taught

Number of hours per week that each teacher will teach

Student: Teacher Ratio of each class

Number of employed teachers

Number of teachers who are leaving

Number of promoted teachers

Number of teachers who will be fired ( sorry it happens)

Number of local teachers

Percentage of predicted growth of each school based on current enrollments.

?(The projected growth of each school is calculated based on different scenarios with different percentage increases.)

Keep in mind that all factors considered are dynamic ( they often change) depending on the school's demographics, the level of students, the number of remedial and after-school classes that each school chooses to have. Take care of sloppiness when considering the above factors because it can jeopardize the quality of education offered by your school and it may also cause your school to lose a lot of money, time, and its reputation.

If you have any additional questions regarding your school's human resource needs , please do not hesitate to contact me:

[email protected]