New Visa Ceiling Called Threat to Teacher Recruitment

New Visa Ceiling Called Threat to Teacher Recruitment

Karin Brulliard has an article in The Washington Post today noting that urban schools in the United States fear the post 9/11 visa restrictions imposed by the Bush Administration will cause fall staffing shortages. They will no longer be able as easily to recruit foreign teachers with skills in short supply in the United States.

She writes, "last month, midway into the fiscal year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it had reached the new ceiling on issuing the visas -- 65,000, a 17 percent cut from the number issued last year -- and no more would be issued until October, when fiscal 2005 begins. Because corporations take most of those slots, the visa cutoff has forced many schools, which usually recruit most aggressively in the spring and summer, to cancel international recruiting trips, turn away foreign applicants and worry that they will be short-staffed when the new school year begins in the fall."

She puts this in context: "Beginning in 2000, Congress tripled the annual ceiling for H-1B visas, to 195,000, mostly to accommodate the high-tech boom's soaring demand for workers. The higher ceiling was for a three-year period, and after a year or so, the slumping high-tech sector sapped demand for the visas. But even as high-tech sputtered, the demand for teachers' visas remained strong. Last year about 78,000 of the visas were issued, not only for high-tech employees and teachers, but also for foreign fashion models and health care workers."

I suspect the impact will be uneven. Inner city schools, that have trouble attracting good teachers due to low salaries and tough conditions may be affected. Schools seeking qualified bilingual teachers seem likely to be affected. And of course, the supply of teachers of science and mathematics will be affected.

This does not seem to be good news for U.S. citizens concerned with knowledge for development at home.