Recruitment and Retention of International School Teachers in Remote Archipelagic Countries: The Fiji Experience

Abstract

In current school environments, teacher recruitment, turnover, and retention present significant problems, particularly for rural and remote international schools in archipelagic countries. Employing the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study analyzed international school teachers with teaching experience at a Fijian international school about their career development, retention ideas, and the decision of teaching service. As there is not a large population of international school teachers in archipelagic countries due to the unique environment of the school and country, the researcher employed the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to better understand six international school teachers who have taught and are teaching at one of the Fijian international schools. The study categorized two directions for leaving and staying at a remote location. Participants indicated that the managerial styles, negative leadership, and limited social networking were the most significant challenges while respectfulness and simple living style were the most significant advantages of their Fijian teaching experience. As this study mainly focused on the issues for rural, remote, and archipelagic countries, the result of this study serves as one of the first blueprints for organizational leaders in those regions to improve their management styles in order to recruit and retain their skillful professionals.

The Application of Career Theories in Teachers' Professional Development and Career Decision: A Literature Review

“…Teacher shortage has become an alarming global issue [1][2][3][4][5]. Undoubtedly, many researchers [6][7][8][9] endeavoured effort in an attempt to alleviate such a problem by understanding more on teachers' professional development and career decision.…”

The Relationship between Teachers and School Professional Staff’s Retention and Managerial Styles

“…Although teachers and school professional staff are encouraged to share their teaching ideas, materials, strategies and methodologies to other fellows and co-workers, most of the teachers continue with their own ways of teaching since the progress of each class is not the same. As a result, some junior-level teachers and school professional staff decided to leave the teaching and educational professions due to the isolating and lonely nature of the career (Dos Santos, 2019d). In this study, many of the participants expressed their appreciation of teaching and educating in an isolated environment due to their personalities and behaviours.…”

“…et al, 2001;Lent.. & Brown, 1996;Lent..., Brown, & Hackett, 2000) interests, choice of goals and performance and attainment are three of the key elements which influence individual career choices and development (Bandura, 1995;Bandura., 1989). Some previous studies (Dos Santos, 2019d) indicate that international school teachers and school professional staff usually care about the external environmental factors and choice of goals due to social and cultural differences in the hosted countries and regions (Hayden & Thompson, 2008). A study explored a group of international school teachers who currently or had previously taught at one of the international schools in the Oceanian country.…”

The Challenges of Public Health, Social Work, and Psychological Counselling Services in South Korea: The Issues of Limited Support and Resource

“…Therefore, a large gap in career counselling and development is found for public health, social work, and psychological counselling services graduates. An emerging area of research focusing on career development has concentrated primarily on hospitality workers' perspectives and human resources shortages [23]. Graduates with academic majors other than business-related subjects represent a significant proportion of the region's human resources, particularly graduates with public health, social work, and psychological counselling services degrees from overseas.…”

“…This framework examines how people apply personal factors in the occupational and career development procedures and how personal elements increase, decrease, or otherwise impact personal agency. SCCT also indicates the significance of Social Cognitive Theory and triadic reciprocal causality [23]. Triadic reciprocal causality is an inter-influential point which impacts the connections, interactions, and significances among people, behaviors, and environmental factors.…”