On Teacher Recruitment — Experiments & Lessons

Attrition amongst teachers in schools is picking up. While we don’t have access to data to prove this, this is a common perception of school leaders, and they agree that this is on the rise after the COVID years. In reality, this has always been a challenge in remote, rural, or affordable schools, and this trend is more evident now as it is affecting more urban schools.

One of the biggest drivers of this attrition in these rural schools is the teachers constantly being on the lookout for better opportunities. Better in terms of salaries, mobility, and access to urban lifestyle choices, and of course, an opportunity to work in better schools.

Over the past 8–9 years, part of my work has involved the recruitment and training of teachers for schools and community education programs. I was under the impression that if we recruit ‘qualified’ teachers and provide excellent training, the attrition problem would be solved. I couldn’t have been more wrong — actually, better training meant employability and therefore, more attrition. On one hand, we would be happy that these well-trained teachers would be getting into education programs elsewhere, but it was frustrating for us to repeat the selection and training process all over again.

We had a discussion internally about this issue of attrition with all the stakeholders and how they think we should address it. Some interesting notes from the meetings included:

1. Poor recruitment is the primary cause of attrition. Correct the recruitment.
2. Attrition is good for the system.
3. Location of the schools is a challenge. We can’t do anything.
4. Many teachers want to come back to our school after working in other schools.
5. Value fitment is an issue. How do we correct that?
6. Mr. X was a lone player. Should he be considered a good teacher?

When we picked up specific examples to discuss in detail, I could feel a sense of loss among the seniors who had selected them. This ownership amongst the seniors was a good thing!

Our data also showed us that a teacher who worked with us beyond the first year will go on to be with us for at least 5 years, unless they were forced to relocate because of marriage or other family commitments. Two other aspects that the data showed were:

1. An interim recruitment (during the academic year) didn’t result in long-term recruitment. Teachers recruited at the start of the academic year had an opportunity to be inducted into the system over 2–3 weeks before the classes began. This wasn’t possible with the interim recruits.
2. There seemed to be some connection between the interview panels and the longevity of the teacher in the system. While the data didn’t show a strong relation, I felt that the diversity in the panel mattered.

While analysing on a case-to-case basis, it was also interesting to note that the teachers who stayed with us longer were the ones who were constantly challenged with newer ideas or were given additional responsibilities, time and again.

This prompted us to review and improve our recruitment processes and the workplace in which they worked.

Our recruitment followed the routine of a demo class followed by an interview. The interviews were mostly focused on the location, accommodation, and salary. Most of the aspects were mostly a one-way download.

First, we moved all this information into a comprehensive presentation to be made to all candidates as they walked in. All information, including the designations and respective salary scales, was worked out in advance and presented to all. This transparency, along with saving valuable time, helped us focus on issues/aspects that really mattered.

Most teachers tend to do well in the demo classes as they would have rehearsed sufficiently, and it can’t really help us test the subject knowledge in a 15-minute demo class followed by a few questions. For us, it mattered more whether a teacher was a team player or not than whether a teacher was excellent in his/her subject. So, we replaced the demo classes with group activities where the participants would be observed for their abilities to communicate effectively and work in teams.

Lastly, the interviews were focused on sharing our idea of education and getting to know the teachers’ work and their thoughts about working in our schools. Differing opinions were appreciated and encouraged in the interviews.

With these three key changes, the selection process moved away from knowledge and skills to focus on the attitude of the teachers.

All of this wasn’t done by the seniormost in the hierarchy, but a diverse group of 12 teachers drawn from across the education programs. Over one day, these 12 teachers would have observed all the teachers and shortlisted a few teachers whom they think will fit in best into the system. These teachers volunteered to spend a Sunday to be a part of this process. And many times, one Sunday wouldn’t be enough.

While this distributed the responsibility of selecting good teachers to everyone, it also brought in collective ownership to do what it takes to make every recruit a success. Once the teacher with the right attitude was recruited, it was the responsibility of everyone in the system to handhold and build the capacities of these teachers over several months to realise their potential.

While we haven’t been able to bring down attrition to desirable levels, our teachers’ group is a much more vibrant group today. Our current recruitment system is more time-consuming than the conventional method, but it is a worthwhile exercise considering the fact that we are selecting our colleagues and our children’s teachers.

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SVYM runs 4 educational institutions and 3 community-based education programs. The community-based programs reach over 50,000 children across the state and focus on taking the learnings from the institutions to the Government schools in the remote corners of the state of Karnataka.