TIC research

Teachers International Consultancy is an organisation which recruits experienced teachers to International Schools all over the world. This is a rather specialised area of recruitment and there is not very much to go on in terms of research.

In the interests of all schools, recruiters, teachers and potential teachers in the arena of international education we have begun a series of research projects with the aim of identifying the critical aspects of successful recruitment in international schools.

Our initial survey was carried out in the summer of 2006 and this gave us the following clues;

• most people go to teach in international schools because they like travelling and are looking for adventure and excitement
• half of the teachers in our study went to teach in international schools in order to enhance their career
•  70% of them said that the experience had been good for their career
• ALL of them said that teaching in an international school had been a personally enriching experience
• the most important characteristic of an international school teacher is FLEXIBILITY, followed by good communication skills, an international outlook and a high quality of education and training
  
• key differences between an international school and a national state school are; international outlook, the behaviour of the children and the type of curriculum taught.
  

We also found out that in our sample two thirds of teachers in international schools said that they had learned a new language while they were working abroad and 20% of these said they had become fluent in that language.