Jamaican teachers cite low wages for migrating - Insist they did not want to leave local classrooms

In 2015, John* made the difficult decision to resign from his teaching position at a local secondary school to take up a similar job in the United States.

Like many other teachers, John, who became a mathematics teacher in 2004, cited the persistently insufficient salaries offered to educators as his reason for seeking opportunities abroad.

"The main reason was from a financial standpoint, as you know it is a constant struggle to get a raise for teachers, if it was even on par with inflation. It was a constant struggle for me and my colleagues, we had to make a choice. If they are looking to buy a house, they can't think about buying a car because having both is not something you can manage with your salary. You can't take care of your family with your salary as a working professional," he told THE STAR.

Last week, Jamaica's Minister of Education and Youth, Fayval Williams, stated that 854 teachers have resigned since January. In response, Jamaica Teachers' Association president Leighton Johnson said the nation's teachers continue to scramble for opportunities to create a better life for themselves and their families, leading them to accept numerous job offers from overseas recruiters. According to John, who taught at five high schools in both the Corporate Area and St Catherine, getting a teaching job abroad was a relatively straightforward process.

"I wouldn't say it was difficult. I had gone online and signed up with a teaching recruiting company. They did their initial screening which involved an interview and document submission. Once I passed that stage, I did a second interview with a principal and I got the job the same day. It was heavily documented but they didn't ask for anything unreasonable or particularly difficult to get," said John, who taught from grade nine to 12.

"Most of these programmes, in order for you to sign up, you have to have at least three years' experience, which means if the experienced teachers are gone, what the school is left with is all junior teachers, and you don't have any senior teachers to guide them along, and I experienced a lot of that a lot earlier in my career," he said.

John, who now teaches in North Carolina, called on the Jamaican Government to allocate resources to address the brain drain of qualified teachers.

"Where I worked at the time, I loved it. It was my alma mater so I enjoyed working there and the students were really nice to work with. I wish I could have taken that part of it and it was just unfortunate that my decision was pretty much [impacted] by factors outside of the classroom," he said.

Joe*, who now works as an English teacher in Japan, lamented the difficulty of leaving behind the students with whom he had formed strong bonds in Jamaica. Despite his deep love for teaching here, financial pressures led him to seek opportunities abroad.

"I love teaching, and when I was finally able to groom the minds of those who would be the future, I did my best to transfer my knowledge to them. But student loans came rushing in, along with bills, and I have goals that I wanted to accomplish," he told THE STAR. "Sometimes I think about coming back, but I'm sure what I have accomplished here in Japan in two years would not have been achieved if I was still in Jamaica."

*Names withheld protect identity