Teacher migration to and from Australia and New Zealand, and the place of Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu teachers

Abstract

The international mobility of teachers is gaining increased attention as particular developing countries become significant sources of supply for more developed countries that have shortages. Most attention so far has focused on Africa's contribution to the United Kingdom workforce. This article examines the patterns of teacher migration for Australia and New Zealand generally, with the aim of providing a context within which to view Pacific Island teacher mobility. Australia and New Zealand are potentially important as destinations for Pacific Island teachers, as sources of teachers to these countries and as partners in the development process, which involves the training and support of teachers. Three quite different cases, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu, are used as examples to begin to understand what is happening in the Pacific. While Vanuatu has little international mobility of teachers, Fiji does experience quite an outflow but this is mainly linked to the political instability which has racked the country since the 1980s. The Cook Islands is quite unique in its overall level of out-migration but the outflow of teachers is not a significant issue. Neither Australia nor New Zealand recruit explicitly from these three countries but they do benefit from the inflow of small numbers of teachers in their general migration programs.