Career organisation encompasses the management rules for the vertical and horizontal progression of staff. It must enable any education system to attract and gain the loyalty of the most qualified, experienced and motivated people by establishing employment conditions and professional promotion possibilities that are appropriate and relevant for teachers.
One of the first aspects of the career progression of teachers concerns salary trend. Just like the level of salary, the structure of teacher remuneration throughout their career greatly varies from one country to another. Some countries have opted for a high starting salary, others for a sharp increase in salary after a number of years on the job. The salary progress scale can be more or less “flat”: data from UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics in 2003 show that the time taken for a secondary school teacher to go from the minimum to the maximum salary varies from 3 years in Kenya to 43 years in Lebanon. For the needs of quality of learning, reaching the salary ceiling late could encourage teachers to continue performing well and remain dedicated throughout their career. In addition, a relatively low starting salary but with significant progression thereafter seems the most effective in terms of costs. However, according to the findings of some comparative research conducted in Asia, the countries characterised by high levels of pupil performance at the end of lower secondary school offer teachers a relatively high starting salary, comparable to that of similar professions (Gannicott, 2009). Salary structure must in fact be adapted to each context, and in particular to the number of candidates qualified for the profession.
Career organisation also concerns promotion possibilities. Indeed, teacher satisfaction is linked to career prospects and diversity of functions (OECD, 2005). Promotion possibilities must therefore be offered in order to ensure teacher motivation. The organisation of teachers’ careers tends to favour a vertical progression, leading teachers to occupy managerial or administrative posts: head teacher, school inspector, regional or district head of education, planning or consultancy positions or management posts at central education level or with the ministry, etc. Faced with the lack of options for horizontal and transversal mobility, such as tutor teacher, programme development specialist or head of external relations and partnerships, teachers sometimes aspire to administrative positions in order to improve their remuneration. Beyond the salary argument, it is not unusual to see particularly motivated and competent teachers leaving the classrooms for positions offering better development prospects and more leeway than that afforded to teachers in a large number of countries. It is therefore important to offer teachers flexible career options, while leaving the door open upwards to management posts and administrative posts, which should be entrusted to experienced teachers who have followed the necessary training (Crehan, 2016).
Another important aspect of the organization of teachers’ careers concerns the debate between a unique status and statutory diversity. Status diversification is the primary policy option by which many developing countries have approached the challenge of adjusting teacher remuneration in order to continue and accelerate the development of their education system. They have given priority to short-term contracts, together with lower pay and fewer advantages. Three teacher categories exist depending on the context: permanent government employees (civil servants), government contract teachers (teachers accepting to work outside the labour convention framework, often for a lower salary than civil servants) and community teachers (recruited and directed by the head teachers or parents and often paid a ridiculously low salary). Increasing the share of non-civil servant teachers has made it possible to cope with the rapid rise in enrolments in developing countries, while limiting salary expenditure. Teachers with lower status and remuneration are generally less qualified, which raises the question of the effective training of teachers, independent of their status. It should be emphasized that the fact of being qualified must not be confused with the academic level of qualification, as teachers with the highest level of qualifications do not necessarily have the pedagogical competencies required to deliver quality education. Besides, research has shown that untrained teachers, such as contract teachers, can obtain better results, due in particular to a lower rate of absenteeism, which may be explained by the fact that they have been chosen among and by the community and are, consequently, better integrated and held more accountable (UNESCO, 2009).
However, status diversification also tends to foster conflicts and strikes, due to a deficient payment system or when subsequent arrangements to integrate contract/community teachers in a career system for all are not established. In addition, status diversification has an impact on the way the profession is considered: recruiting untrained less-qualified teachers has had a negative effect in terms of attracting the best candidates (UNESCO, 2009).
Bibliography:
Crehan, L. 2016. Exploring the impact of career models on teacher motivation. Paris: IIEP.
Gannicott, K. 2009. Secondary Teacher Policy Research in Asia: Teacher Numbers, Teacher Quality: Lessons from Secondary Education in Asia. Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2005. Teachers matter: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. Education and training policy. Paris: OECD.
UNESCO, Regional Office for Education in Africa, and Pôle de Dakar. 2009. Universal Primary Education in Africa: The Teacher Challenge. Dakar, Senegal: BREDA.
