Going home after teaching abroad - will you get a job???

A friend of mine who has been teaching abroad for several years now is always talking about going home... Not because she doesn't like teaching overseas, it's more like, she wants to psych herself up for it, because she thinks the time will eventually come.

This week she sent me a link to an article in the New York Times called With Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers. This is great news for her, if she ever takes the plunge and returns home.

The article talks about US schools having difficulty offering recruitment and retention bonuses to teachers in an attempt to hire them for positions in low-achieving schools. Some of these bonuses are LARGE! One teacher received a recruitment bonus of $10 000 from one school.

Now, I have my own opinion on whether recruitment bonuses are a good thing for education, but I can't argue that it's a great idea for teachers!

If you're worried about giving up your current teaching job to take a position overseas, don't be! In the UK, the US and in NZ, the education authority will often PAY YOU to go home, as well as give you a job!

Check out the New York Times article, maybe the US will soon be opening up and allowing Overseas Trained Teachers (OTT) to teach there...