Jamaican teachers at leading UK academy chain paid less than their British colleagues

Teachers recruited from Jamaica to work for a major chain of academy schools in London have spoken of their “devastation” on finding out that they are being paid thousands of pounds a year less than English-trained recruits with similar levels of experience.

The Harris Federation, England’s second largest academy chain, with 54 state-funded schools, has been recruiting from Jamaica in recent years, bringing teachers to the UK who are attracted by higher salaries than they can earn in the Caribbean.

However, experienced teachers have told the Observer they have spent years working in Harris schools while still being classed as “unqualified”. This means they are paid less than their qualified counterparts.

The teachers said it has left them struggling with London’s high cost of living. Several also said they had been “thrown in at the deep end” by the federation, expected to start teaching with little to no job-specific training and no help with finding accommodation.

Harris paid its chief executive, Sir Dan Moynihan, £485,000 to £490,000 a year in 2022-23, when seven of its executives were paid at least £190,000 each.

The federation said last year that it had recruited more than 150 teachers from Jamaica since 2018. Earlier this month, Moynihan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We now recruit teachers from Jamaica simply because we cannot find [UK-trained] teachers who are willing to live and work in central London.”

Harris had been recruiting from Jamaica using a company called Hourglass Education, and also flies out its own staff to do interviews.

Five Jamaican teachers told the Observer that neither Hourglass nor Harris made it clear to them that it could take more than a year for Harris to begin the process of moving them off the unqualified teacher pay scale towards them gaining qualified teacher status (QTS).

In a statement to the Observer, Harris said it was no longer working with Hourglass.

Under current rules, teachers recruited from countries including the EU and US can go through a fast-track system to gain QTS in England, meaning that soon after arrival they will be paid at similar levels for their experience to those trained in the UK.

Teachers who come from countries including Jamaica, India, Ghana and Nigeria with qualifications to teach languages, maths or science in secondary schools are also put on this fast-track route.

However, teachers of other subjects from these countries work in English schools on a lower “unqualified teachers” pay scale.

As of last year, England’s national pay scale for teachers stated that less experienced staff with QTS could be paid up to £47,666 in inner London, rising to a maximum of £56,959 for more experienced professionals.

In contrast, teachers deemed “unqualified” were paid a ­maximum of £37,362 regardless of previous experience overseas, although the difference in take-home pay is not as stark because “unqualified” Jamaican teachers are exempt from income tax for their first two years in England. Harris also offers a bonus of up to £2,000 to teachers who work beyond their contractual hours.

The process of gaining qualified status to change this is then in the school’s control. The National Education Union (NEU) said all recruited staff should be put through the QTS application process within a year.

Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s general secretary, said: “The Harris Federation is failing overseas-trained teachers (OTTs). Many schools in the trust have dragged their heels in putting our members through the QTS process in a timely manner. It is frankly unacceptable for Harris to be taking more than a year to even begin the process.”

A Harris spokesperson said they no longer use a recruitment agency, as of February, and have dedicated relocation managers and mentors. They added: “To ease cost of living pressures, we offer our staff packages that go far beyond national pay deals. But the challenge of being able to find and afford suitable housing in London is a problem that affects many teachers. Indeed, we first raised the issue eight years ago and continue to work to find possible solutions.”

One of the five teachers the Observer spoke to, who asked to remain anonymous as he still works there, said he had been recruited in 2020 but only gained QTS this year – meaning Harris had paid him for four years on the “unqualified” scale.

Michael (not his real name), who teaches in a large secondary academy, said he was paid £2,600 a month after tax. The NEU said that, as a qualified teacher on the main scale, he would have received £3,275 after tax.

Michael said he felt his school had sought to delay him getting qualified for as long as possible. He said: “They want to retain as much money as possible by not getting [teachers from Jamaica] as qualified as the rest of the staff are.

“It just feels like another Windrush situation. It’s quite a devastating situation for us. The money we’re being paid just makes it really tough to live from day to day.”

A spokesperson for the Harris Federation said an “amazing cohort of staff from Jamaica” had benefited the education of their students. “It has kept our classrooms staffed at a time when headteachers in the whole country, but especially those of us in London, face a teacher recruitment crisis,” the spokesperson said.

The federation said that the “negativity of the NEU’s campaign on this issue does not reflect the reality of most people’s experiences in our schools”. It however acknowledged: “As with any large employer, we will of course have a small number of colleagues who are not 100% happy with their experience. In these instances, we work extremely hard to address any concerns raised with us.”

They added that they “fully fund” the cost of UK teaching qualifications for all Jamaican staff “and provide extensive practical support to try and help as many as possible to achieve this within three years or sooner.

“We have comprehensive paid inductions for our overseas staff the summer before they join, with dedicated relocation mentors and a designated HR relocation manager to help them, and their partners or children, make the shift to London life much more smoothly.

“As part of the induction, there is a course which explains the route to getting a UK teaching qualification, coaching so [overseas staff] understand the UK education system and information about how to access our high-quality curriculum support.”