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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE teaching (ELT) sector is booming: over one hundred English language schools employ 1,000+ teachers, and the most lucrative schools are being eyed for takeover by multinationals, and even Russian billionaires.
Earlier this year, Education Minister Richard Bruton launched a plan to grow the value of the sector to €2.1 billion by 2020 – a 33% increase.
With students being charged approximately €1,500 for a six-month, part-time course, there’s money in English language teaching, but not for teachers.
Precarious work and low pay
Ireland may present itself as a world leader in ELT but teachers in these schools have to contend with precarious work, low pay and poor employment conditions.
The use of fixed-term contracts is endemic: in fact, some schools maintain all their teachers on temporary contracts, letting them go as soon as they approach four years’ service and are entitled to a permanent contract.
Low-hours contracts and bogus self-employment are also a growing concern, while most ELT teachers can only dream of overtime or sick pay. Unite has come across several schools offering teachers eleven-month contracts in January, letting them go just before Christmas and offering another eleven-month contract the following January.
The reason? It means the school doesn’t have to pay holiday pay over the Christmas period.
Financial exclusion
Precarious working doesn’t just mean financial insecurity: it also results in a form of financial exclusion, with teachers on fixed-term contract unable to even get a car loan, never mind a mortgage.
Virtually all schools only pay for so-called “contact hours”: classroom hours in direct contact with students. Yet most teachers spend at least 10 hours a week preparing and marking lessons and developing teaching plans essentially for free.
Those teachers who do have a permanent contract still have to contend with wage rates as low as €13 an hour for a 30 hour week. That’s just €1.50 above the living wage.
Discrimination is rife
Ironically, given that the sector relies on a steady stream of foreign custom, discrimination is also rife, with many schools paying lower salaries to non-native speakers in blatant contravention of the Employment Equality Act.
The sector has also been bedevilled by a lack of regulation, with the monitoring body – Accreditation and Coordination of English Language Services (ACELS) – being starved of both funding and staff.
A couple of year ago, following a series of high-profile school closures which left both teachers and students high and dry, the government pledged to step up regulation. ACELS is now being phased out, and Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) will have regulatory responsibility in the future.
In a move to combat criminality and corruption, the government published an Interim List of Eligible Programmes (ILEP) in early 2016. This went some way towards regulating and standardising school ownership and administration, laying down basic standards relating to issues such as class size, health and safety, and basic facilities.
But the ILEP – published by the Departments of Justice and Education – does not address workers’ rights. In fact, it seems that the rights of teachers remain incidental to the business (and it is a business) of English language teaching.
Systemic abuse of rights
Unite represents almost 100 teachers across nearly 20 schools, and earlier this year we requested a meeting with Education Minister Richard Bruton to raise our members’ concerns regarding the systematic abuse of workers’ rights in the ELT sector. That meeting was refused, and we have now requested a meeting with Tánaiste and Minster for Justice Frances Fitzgerald to ask that the ILEP be redrafted and placed on a statutory footing to enshrine the employment rights of teachers.
The English language teaching sector has the potential to be a driver not only of consumer spending and profits, but also of high value-added employment. We need to start viewing English language teaching as an export sector, and treating it accordingly. Unite is determined to ensure that the sector fulfils its potential. We can make a start by outlawing shoddy employment practices.
Roy Hassey is Regional Organiser for Unite the Union, which is currently working with English language teachers to improve their pay and working conditions.
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This is all true. Just think, if these students were not given work permits, much of this would end. Bogus schools would not be bringing in huge profits. Employers would not be able to take advantage of foreign workers who were in Ireland to work, with language school as an excuse. More jobs would be open for the Irish and EU citizens. More housing would be available in Dublin due to the decrease in students requiring housing. No, I am not anti-immigration or a racist (most of the students are Caucasian anyway). Other countries do not provide work permits to non-university students, yet students still come, but in lesser numbers.
@Rathminder: if these students are not given working permit, they would simply not come to Ireland and would possibly go to elsewhere. While they are in Ireland, they pay their taxes, they help to drive the economy and some end up with a full work permit visa as some are highly skilled.
The types of work most of these students are willing to take are jobs that the average Irish citizen wouldn’t.
The students are only allowed to work part time and the house supply has nothing to do with the fact that there are too many foreign students in Ireland / Dublin.
This is an issue of the Irish government who is unable to tackle house supplies and do not put in place robust law against greedy landlords.
Rents are going up by 20-30% but salaries are frozen and the inflation is below 3%.
It’s a tough industry ELT. I’ve done it in Ireland and I’ve done much more abroad. Irish people are native speakers of English and with a basic degree and TEFL certificate can go and teach in 30 or more countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is a pleasure to meet and help people from different cultural backgrounds to learn English and to familiarise themselves with aspects of Irish and western culture. Unfortunately, as the writer emphasises, in the Irish ELT industry there is little security for teachers. I would add that while teaching TEFL abroad can be exotic and adventurous, there is also a gnawing sense of impermanence and modest financial reward.
@Garreth Byrne: Pardon my ignorance on this, but do people not take it for what it is, i.e.: as you describe ‘impermance’. I have this vision of these TEFL teachers as being fresh out of uni and seeking to arse around the world for a year or two and get paid for it? Is that your experience? This does not address of course the issue in the article, I think its a disgrace how these people are treated and is akin in some ways to zero hour contracts insofar as there is such a high degree of uncertainty.
@Andrew Tuite: Good question. Some young graduates go abroad ‘to see a bit of the world’ by teaching TEFL. Some of them return to Ireland and go into permanent and pensionable jobs; but others discover a joy for teaching. I have worked in English and rural development in Africa and didn’t ‘arse around’. I spent several years in Asia and made myself useful while teaching TEFL. There are sending agencies looking for teachers young and not so young to teach English and technical subjects in Africa and elsewhere. The agencies like candidates to do orientation courses to ensure that teachers fit in wherever they go.
The TEFL situation in Ireland is unsatisfactory to teachers.
@Garreth Byrne: Oh no, rural development in Africa, would western people not just leave Africa alone to develop how it sees fit
@An_Beal_Bocht: People from Europe with agricultural, building and carpentry skills can, if they bring helpful and open personalities with them, assist people in rural Africa to do things better. I could give you a link to examples of practical education initiatives by Irish and other foreigners in recent years in East and Central Africa.
6 months is considered full time education? Also 1500 euro is practically below the break even for an English language college to operate concidering the restrictions to 15 students in a class, cost of maintenance of accreditation, rent etc. (ICOS warned students about signing up for courses below the 1500 euro level because they are trading at a loss if being done correctly)
Obviously Roy the author is an English teacher and not an economics one
@Captain kirk: Similar to having a full time job for six months as opposed to a part time job for a couple of years. It’s the hours per day you attend rather than the duration of the job/course that determines if it is full or part time.
A lot of competition. .probably after brexit irish teachers will be the only one around EU schools. ..
Students are not given work visas, they are given student visas. So they have to attend class every day. But they also have to work the maximum 20 hours they’re allowed so that they can pay rent and live. The jobs they do usually have nothing to do with their qualifications in their own country so it’s not a case of them ‘taking our jobs’. We teachers of English do our job cos we love it and take it seriously.
Well said Roy
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