Six Challenges Facing MK Schools Today — A View from the Field
At a recent gathering of MK educators, one of our colleagues, Noora, shared a heartfelt and insightful reflection on the challenges her school faces. Her words resonated deeply with many of us, and we believe they deserve a wider audience. Here’s a summary of the six key challenges she outlined – each one a window into the complex world of missionary education.
1. Recruitment Timing Is Everything
Many teachers begin looking for new opportunities in the fall, but our schools often don’t know their staffing needs until spring. This mismatch makes it difficult to attract qualified candidates in time. As Noora put it, “Recruitment is a full-time job.”
Many professional recruiters may be critical and somewhat dumbfounded by how MK schools live hand-to-mouth regarding staffing needs. Ideally, schools should plan ahead and attempt to secure personnel well (i.e. several years) in advance. I whole-heartedly agree with this but given the situation most schools it is a lot to ask. Recruitment is a more or less full-time job, and many schools are short-staffed as it is, so where would they find the time or personnel to do this in addition? It is extremely difficult for admin staff to lay aside time for recruitment, as they are overworked to begin with and there are always more pressing issues to attend to. Let volunteers from Friends of TIS help each school and nontraditional situation with this.
It seems to me that schools which are “owned” by an M organization have an advantage, as it is in the interest of someone outside of the school community to recruit and provide teachers and keep the whole thing up and running. The organization may even prioritize finding personnel for the school in their own recruitment. However, for schools such as xyz that are stand-alone entities, recruitment is on them.
2. Security Limits Our Reach
In some regions, schools can’t publicly advertise openings due to security concerns. This makes it harder to find the right people and forces us to rely on word-of-mouth and trusted networks.
Schools which are located in creative access countries are unable to utilize web advertising to its full potential. Let volunteers from Friends of TIS help each school and nontraditional situation with this.
They cannot have an public website or be openly “out there”, as that could compromise families affiliated with the school as well as the whole mission. It is an absolute must to “fly under the radar”. It is possible to work around this to some extent by using pseudonyms and non-descript emails, etc. (xyz has done this), but information given out has to always be approved and controlled by the school.
3. Missions Mindset Needs a Refresh
Some mission organizations still view education as a secondary ministry. This outdated mindset can lead to underfunding and a lack of support for MK schools, even though they are vital to sustaining long-term missions.
The existing, traditional mission organizations don’t always provide the best sending organization and support for teachers. It seems that teaching MKs is still not viewed as valid mission work on its own. Many organizations will require additional activities or responsibilities in “spiritual work” from their Ms.
However, anyone who has ever taught full-time, knows that is it a full-time job for real. There is little time or energy left to do anything else. (All the more if teachers may be living overseas for the first time ever, or teaching full-time for the first time, or sometimes both!)
Some organizations don’t even send out teachers and many don’t prioritize them. I have been told by a long-term Southern Baptist worker in Baku, that their organization will not send out teachers, period.
I realize my perspective is very limited, and hopefully the situation is better for other parts of world, but I have yet to meet the company who is actively looking for teachers to send out as workers. Teach Beyond is the exception.
TIS is much smaller and does not send out teachers but it does send them to TB and other mission organizations. As TIS continues with its reconstruction it needs for the business manager and directors to understand this.
Unfortunately, this also goes back to finances. It seems people will rather support a “proper missionary” involved in church planting or other faith-related work than a teacher, who is (worst case scenario) teaching kids of Christian, missionary families! It seems many still haven’t internalized that missions is a team sport, and not everyone can play the striker position.
4. Scheduling Conflicts with Sending Agencies
When sending agencies schedule retreats or conferences during the school year, it disrupts learning and puts pressure on teachers. Better coordination could go a long way in supporting both families and educators.
Traditional sending organizations may have many hoops for their M candidates to jump through, and teachers are no exception to the rule. Some of these requirements are helpful whereas some not so much. Some organizations may require a teacher candidate to attend cultural orientation, reach a certain percentage of support, etc. before allowing them to move forward in actually leaving for the field.
This may mean that teachers who are recruited in Jan/Feb, may not make it to the field in time for the beginning of school in Aug, not to even mention any late-comers who become interested in teaching in the spring. Offering no flexibility or fast-track options doesn’t help the school – or even the candidate at times.
A school calendar can not be adjusted for a single teacher (or even several) and schools may end up having to juggle weeks (or months!) with substitute staff as they wait for their teachers to arrive! Any teachers who arrive late will also miss out on school orientation and other important start-up activities at the beginning of an academic year.
Indeed it seems traditional sending organizations don’t entirely understand (or consider unimportant) the system of how schools operate and how many people are indirectly affected by staffing needs. I have met M organization personnel who either shrug their shoulders and simply suggest that maybe the incoming teacher should come for next semester or the next school year!
Either of these options leaves the school in lurch, since they may not have other options readily at hand or even a pool of candidates to reach out to. (And even if they did have other candidates, they would then have to restart the process from square 1 with someone completely new! How would that make things any faster??)
Of course, professional recruiters say that schools need to work well ahead and have people in the pipelines several years in advance. I agree wholeheartedly, but also realize that this is extremely difficult to achieve!
Postponing may not be the best option for the candidate either, although this is the typical argument for it. While I fully believe that people need time to process and it is unwise to leave for missions on a whim, I also think teachers should be treated differently than other M candidates.
Postponing (especially for an extensive time) may leave people in limbo for too long (what are they to do for another year if they have planned on being overseas?) and cause them to “run out of steam” so they decide not to come after all. Also, supporters may start to feel that they have committed to finance someone who doesn’t seem to be going anywhere after all.
My experience is that usually support comes in very quickly once the candidate is actually on the field and supporters start receiving news of actual needs and work being done.
What this tells me is that TIS should include some digestion of this into their advertising schema that would include when should we (TIS) make a big push for teachers. Like a year in advance we should instruct the Director of the pursuit of teachers to make massive use of volunteers from Friends of TIS to really push for advertising in August, or earlier, for potential teachers to work backward from their time to arrive at their school and establish a year in advance timeline.
5. Financial Barriers Are Real
Even when teachers are willing to serve, raising support can be a major hurdle. Many passionate educators never make it to the field because they can’t secure the necessary funding.
One of the greatest hurdles in securing teachers for M schools is the fact that they have to be supported. Many recently graduated teachers have student loans and thus can’t afford to take a position in a school that doesn’t provide a salary. (I noticed the TIS organizational structure addressed this question and it could indeed be a draw factor.)
Many schools are moving toward a system where they provide teachers with small salaries/stipends, payback of student loans, or other compensation package. Even just paying flights to and from their home country can be a significant factor for incoming teachers. I believe this is the direction xyz is slowly heading toward as well.
However, I have heard that even schools which offer teachers a salary/stipend, are finding it harder to recruit new staff.
Have the Director of giving pursue in earnest Project EdSend!
It would be helpful if there was a system for schools to receive direct donations which could be used to fund teachers’ stipends or compensation (either temporarily while they raise additional support or for their entire time of service). I know families who might be happy to donate regularly to a school, and it might be easier to continue this for a longer period, rather than figuring out how to support individual teachers who come and go with different organizations and systems for giving.
This could also be something that could be advertised and lobbied for, e.g, “Give 100 USD to support 1 week of teaching Gr 4 at School X”.
However, xyz for instance does not have a way to receive tax deductible donations from the US at the moment. This was something the school started to look into and was hoping to move forward with, but I don’t know if it has happened.
6. We Need More Personal Connection
Noora emphasized the importance of relationships: “We need more people to come visit, to see what we do, and to share our story.” Personal connection fuels advocacy, prayer, and long-term support.
It seems that most often the decision to come teach at a MK school requires a personal connection on some level. People may come because they know someone who went to the school, teaches or taught there, or have personally met people from the school. Our experience at xyz was that faceless/impersonal web-based advertising was not very effective.
Let volunteers from Friends of TIS help each school and nontraditional situation with this. Have them get to know the school and teachers and then go out to the world with enthusiasm that could only be acquired through interaction with the school. Have the director of giving provide funding for some members with Friends of TIS to actually go to the school for first hand familiarization.
We had some adverts for open positions up on different websites, but those led to very few contacts. So the big question remains: how do we make MK schools more attractive?
Enhance their page on the TIS web site through the efforts of volunteers from Friends of TIS working with teachers from the school. Advertisements for schools should include up to date good things happening at the school. The volunteers can work on this but the schools need to be intimately involved.
Does it require more cooperation and connections with teacher training facilities – student teaching, training to teach internationally from the get-go??
What I think MK schools desperately need are the following:
Recruiters who have connections with potential teachers, a personal connection with the school and who believe in the cause
Sending organizations that understand the time frame for teacher arrival and that teachers should be free to just teach, that being valid and valuable mission work on its own
A way to funnel direct donations to the school, which could be used to compensate incoming teachers either temporarily or as a monthly stipend during the entire time they serve at the school (easing pressure on support)
