The Educator Workforce National Skills Scoping Study – Middle East

Based on extensive research and data, Etio (formerly Tribal Education Services) supported the development of a skills scoping study in a prominent Middle East country. The purpose of this study was to identify skills and recruitment challenges across all levels of the education sector and more closely align the supply of teachers and educators with the needs of early years providers, schools, higher education and training. As part of the study, teacher and school leader licensing standards were reviewed as well as the teacher training programmes and relevant programmes to support professional development across all levels of education.

Data was collected on recruitment and skills through interviews and a focus group. Four different sets of data focused on different levels of education from early years, K12, higher education and training sectors. Regulators and relevant government agencies were also interviewed to assess their perspective on Educator Workforce skills and recruitment challenges.

The findings identified different skills gaps and recruitment challenges across the different levels of education and informed the scoping of a larger more focused study of the early years and K12 education workforce. The findings for higher education supported a professional development programme that focused on teaching skills for all university faculty. Findings for the Training sector highlighted the need to increase professionalism in Trainers through regulation and mandatory qualifications.

The clients progressive approach to an integrated systems analysis of skills and recruitment across all levels of education demonstrated a recognition of the importance of the interrelationships and interdependencies between the different parts of the education system and allowed policy recommendations to be make in consideration of their impact on the wider system.