In our last article Neil McMillan from Barcelona based SLB coop challenged us all to come up with a HOW to challenge the hegemony of the current CELTA certificate. We promised a concrete reply which would be both obvious and predictable and here it is: support the striking Delfin and IBAT teachers.
Both groups are fighting for proper trade union recognition but their union (Unite) is also fighting to set up a Joint Labour Committee for the English Language Schools sector. We covered this legislative approach here. Ireland is a particular situation where they have already sought to regulate the sector in view of a number of unplanned school closures which damaged Ireland’s reputation for English Language courses for oversees students, and what is seen as a possible Brexit windfall if they could offer guaranteed quality courses in Ireland.
It has already been recommended by a government appointee commissioned to look into the situation that they guarantee certain working conditions as a basis for ensuring the industry continues to be staffed by skilled committed professionals. It is exactly here where standards of teacher training and commitment to CPD (continuous professional development) can be written into teaching conditions and the advertising standards by which courses are advertised for visiting stufents. Indeed, as part of a ten point charter (promoted by ELT Advocacy Ireland) Unite are asking that teachers be paid and supported for CPD and standardised salary scales and transparent rationale for this be adopted throughout the industry. Clearly under such conditions we can begin to outline the desired teaching knowledge of teachers and ensure they are rewarded for undertaking training in order to achieve those levels. This opens up the question of what level of training is required and the contents of such training. For example the ten point charter also includes equality of pay and conditions for Non-Native Speaking Teachers and we would hope this would include paid recognition for a certificated level of learning a second or other language (the posession of which should also financially benefit Native English speaking teachers). Create the need and the new qualifications and training institutions will follow.
We do not seek to abolish the CELTA or to put unnecesaary barriers to TEFL adventurers as they travel around the globe on a sabatical year or seek to broaden their horizons for whatever reason (good luck to them, many of us started out in the same way). However, we do want to make transparent what is a “qualified teacher” (a four-week training course not qualifying as such in our humble opinion) to potential learners and ensure teachers embarking on substantial teacher training be properly rewarded for doing so. Maybe schools should be forced to publish a recognised independently assessed index of the qualifications of their staff which should be weighted to show a healthy mix of entrants to the profession undergoing a solid CPD programme and the existence of already well-qualified and experience staff capable of helping those entrants. This does go on in a certain manner already but it does so on an ad hoc basis where skills and experience of “senior staff” are not currently well-rewarded and teachers largely fund their own training.
However, all this hypothetical talk will depend on the success of colleagues in Ireland and our capacity to use those changes for leverage in our own local contexts. For this reason we urge you to step up support for striking colleagues. It’s Christmas, can we not make collections in our local workplace and send it to the Unite Striking Teachers Hardship Fund? Can we not set up new initiatives in the New Year to raise funds and raise awareness of the importance of the strike?? Let them know we are thinking of them at this difficult uncertain time of year, send messages of support.
To go beyond the CELTA we need to get up off our knees and fight. Supporting the existing, possibly game changing, strikes in Ireland is a big step towards waging that battle.
Marxist TEFL Group 