Qualified Teachers Choosing Call Centres Over Classrooms

Belize is facing a growing challenge as the country experiences a brain drain in its education sector. Many teachers are flocking to the U.S. for better benefits, including better pay. And now the education sector is facing a new problem. Trained teachers are leaving the profession to work at call centres. That’s right. Trained teachers now prefer to work in a cubicle rather than in a classroom, and this has caused some major concerns. BNTU President Nadia Caliz explains.

 

Nadia Caliz, President, B.N.T.U.

“I don’t have concrete data, and I know that is something that I need to gather. But the data that was shared with me by MOE is that the teachers who are supposed to join the profession with the teacher training qualifications are going to the call centres, eight percent of them. You remember under Minister Faber, if you wanted to do primary education, you got a scholarship? A lot of those people did not end up in the classrooms.”

 

Paul Lopez

“And for the U.S., is it a trend?”

 

Nadia Caliz

“It is a trend, and you have a lot of them preparing to go again because they hear of the wonderful salary and the classroom size. So they want to go to greener pastures.”