As schools across the UAE prepare to reopen on Monday, August 25, education leaders have stressed that career growth, development opportunities, and the prestige of teaching are just as critical as salaries in ensuring teacher retention.
This was reiterated by Dino Varkey, Group Chief Executive Officer of Gems Education, during the annual Gems Awareness Day held at Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai.
“I think the compensation and benefits package is always going to be important,” he told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the event. “However, I would argue that if you’re offering the other elements — professional mobility and development — that genuinely becomes a much stronger incentive for teachers to stay with us than just the financial package. At the same time, we need to ensure our compensation remains competitive.”
A new global study has revealed that elementary and pre-school teachers in 34 developed countries earn, on average, about 22 per cent less than professionals in other fields with similar education levels.
Varkey also highlighted the importance of raising the profile of teaching. “I think it’s (also) about maybe raising the profile of teaching as a profession. We’ve certainly tried to do that with our Global Teacher Prize… that’s part of the challenge.”
He added that retention relies on more than pay alone. “For me, at the end of the day teaching is a vocation. If you can provide teachers with that ecosystem where they feel challenged, happy, safe, trusted and enabled, they’re going to stick with you. The reality is that within the international schooling space… teacher turnover typically sits at 25 per cent. Our average is actually significantly below that, sitting at about 15 per cent, so we certainly operate well below global benchmarks. But there’s much, much more work to do.”
Varkey emphasized the need for systemic change, calling for a cultural shift in how teachers are perceived.
“I think society needs to celebrate teachers once again. If I go back to when my grandparents were teachers, they were put on a pedestal within the society. They didn’t have significant means… but the community still placed them on a pedestal because of what they were doing.”
Gems, one of the largest private school groups in the UAE, has hired more than 1,700 new teachers from over 70 countries for the new academic year. Each year, it receives more than 600,000 applications for about 2,000 vacancies, making it one of the most sought-after education employers globally.
Echoing Varkey’s views, Lisa Crausby OBE, Group Chief Education Officer at Gems, said research continues to show that pay is not the strongest driver for teacher retention.
“A lot of the research says that it actually isn’t ever really about salary. It’s more about professional development and the opportunities to go through that growth experience…from an employee perspective. So, we’re leaning into that. That’s why we’re launching our Gems Talent Academy, making sure there is really strong professional development for all of our staff.”
She noted that salary adjustments may still be needed in specific contexts. “There may be times where you might want to look at salary, of course, but it also needs to be benchmarked. We also need to think about maybe retention allowances, if there’s a particular flight risk in a particular subject, for example, like physics… sometimes it can be hard to reach teachers with that level of specialism. So, thinking a little bit more flexibly and outside of the box is certainly something that we’re open to now.”
Crausby also explained how Gems is creating clear pathways for teachers’ professional growth. “So I’ve talked earlier about the pathway to world class. We’ve already designed a pathway for a teacher, so there’s a whole set of descriptors, … these are people that we would start looking at for middle leadership posts or excellent fellowship. Likewise, for middle leaders becoming members of the senior leadership team. So, I think people are more interested in growth, their own professional growth and opportunities to further their careers, and we want our staff to buy into that model too.”
Considering the broader global education challenge, a Unesco global report on teachers estimates that an additional 44 million teachers will be required to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.
In the context of global teacher shortage, Varkey added, “I don’t think the global teacher shortage is ever going to be addressed through traditional solutions… this is where I think, whether it’s technology, artificial intelligence and or machine learning systems, are going to act as a very important bridge and a catalyst to try and resolve what I think is one of the most acute problems that the world is facing today.”
© Khaleej Times
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