EdData II: Data for Education Research and Programming (derp) in Africa

Teacher recruitment and placement 
strategies for meeting
language needs 
The 
2013/14 Education for All Global 
Monitoring Report
(UNESCO, 2014, 
Chapter 6, “A four-part strategy for 
providing the best teachers”) advocated 
for a number of teacher recruitment and 
placement strategies to address 
inequities, including shortages of 
teachers who speak various L1 
languages, and the real and perceived 
deprivations of teaching in rural areas 
where minority languages tend to 
predominate. Among the strategies are 
locally based recruitment, various types 
of monetary and housing incentives, and 
establishment of clear career paths.

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bilingual/multilingual strategies to support and scaffold both language learning and the 
learning of academic content. Ongoing support needs to be provided so teachers do not 
become frustrated and abandon teaching in either L1 or L2/Lx.
•
In linguistically homogeneous environments where one main language is spoken, 
recruiting/placing teachers based on their language capacity can ensure that students and 
teachers understand each other on the most basic level. However, recruitment and 
placement efforts must be sensitive to teachers’ professional and personal needs and 
should not unfairly restrict those who speak minority languages to difficult urban or 
remote areas. language 
•
For language groups that are 
underrepresented in the teaching 
workforce, efforts can be made 
(such as scholarships and special 
outreach programs) to improve 
access to teacher training 
programs for speakers of these 
languages. To fill immediate 
needs in situations where large 
numbers of learners are not being 
taught by teachers who share 
their language, temporary 
measures include recruiting 
community-based teacher 
assistants, developing fast-track 
or alternative certification routes and distance learning programs, and using translators in 
the classroom. Incentives should be offered to ensure that teachers stay in areas where 
they are most needed. 
Aligning pre- and in-service training with a plan for language use in education is essential to 
ensuring its successful implementation in the long term. Under the USAID Reading for 
Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed (READ) Technical Assistance (TA) Project, for example, 
pre-service training is currently being revised to align with new curricula that have been 
developed for teaching in seven L1 languages in grades 1-8.