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 quoted while speaking to the Middle East media, 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 emphasised 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. 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.”
