Best Practice: How to attract and retain teachers

An important part of Human Resource Planning in an area of shortage is to find ways of attracting and retaining staff. Sierra Leone is facing a shortage of qualified teachers and therefore needs to attract young people to enrol in teacher training colleges and subsequently opt for a career in the teaching service.

In order to encourage young people for the teaching profession the teaching service has a range of options including:

• Organise promotion activities regularly, preferably annually, at the end of each school year and before exams for coming graduates in secondary schools and teacher training colleges.
• Apply young people’s means of communication, information and learning, such as social media.
• Explore and implement means of raising the status of the profession through media campaigns.
• Highlight the advantages of being a teacher:
  • Meaningful job impacting on the country’s economy and progress, social conditions and poverty elimination, the future careers of pupils, etc.
  • The joy of working with children.
  • Opportunities for creativity in teaching.
  • Opportunities for pursuing and developing subject interests.
• Lay-out an attractive career path for teachers (from rural community school to UNESCO).
• Offer benefits to teachers if possible, such as housing, school meals, etc.
• Offer a good work environment, i.e. good facilities, common rooms for teachers, cleanliness, open and green spaces, proper classrooms which are not crammed, etc.
• Enhance best-practice leadership in schools.
• Ensure smooth administration of all HR processes pertaining to teachers.
• Promote a stimulating academic and learning environment for teachers.
• Provide insurance, a good pension scheme and similar benefits to teachers.