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The British Council has been accused of exploiting hundreds of agency teachers on zero-hour contracts forced to compete for lessons in a “feeding frenzy” every week.
An open letter from teaching staff reveals the prestigious government-funded public body does not offer regular hours to tutors on its popular English Online platform, which provides lessons to more than 45,000 students worldwide.
Instead, up to 350 teachers based in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and India have to race each other to book fluctuating numbers of classes released every week, which is referred to by staff as “the feeding frenzy”.
“Often, all available classes are gone in minutes. This means that if you’re teaching or having computer problems when hours are released, you can end up with no lessons at all,” the letter states, which has been coordinated by the Tefl Workers’ Union. “This Uberfication of teaching needs to stop.”
Teachers used to be directly employed by the British Council, which is funded by the Foreign Office to foster good cultural relations with other countries. But after the pandemic, the council’s commercial arm, which generates £700m annually, started recruiting teachers via partner agencies.
It comes as the government pushes ahead with legislation to ban “exploitative” zero-hour contracts. Ministers announced this month that firms will have to offer agency workers a contract that guarantees a minimum number of hours every week to stop employers evading restrictions.
There are growing concerns about exploitative gig economy practices spreading into new sectors of the economy and professional jobs. Unions have warned that the modern types of casualisation pioneered by Uber and Deliveroo are creeping into high street shops and education, with even Oxford University now putting academics on gig-style contracts.
The foreign secretary, David Lammy, is answerable to parliament for the “policies, operations and performance” of the British Council. The Tefl union understands that at least one parliamentarian may raise the treatment of the teachers with the government.
Teaching jobs on the platform are advertised by the British Council, but they are not directly employed by the public body, which was set up by the Foreign Office in the 1930s to improve Britain’s international standing. In the UK, teachers are employed by the Impellam Group.
A teacher, who asked not to be named, said at first the British Council gave her the option to work regular hours. “I wasn’t worried about paying bills [when I started in 2021]. It felt like a proper job.” While she was on maternity leave, the British Council stopped offering guaranteed hours. She said she was left without any income for a month when she returned to work: “I had nothing… it was absolutely abysmal.”
She added her job was less secure than her partner’s bar work. “To get this job, I had to show copies of my master’s and teaching diploma, which took years to get. But I am paid less and less predictably than my partner, who works in an entry-level bar job…it’s very insulting.”
Internal British Council staff message boards covering the last 10 months – which a whistleblower has shared with the Observer – describe the weekly releases of lessons as “10 minutes of manic button pressing, panic and expletives”, which is getting worse because “the number of teachers is growing a lot faster than the number of classes being uploaded”.
Some are left with only a couple of lessons each week, which pay £13 for an hour-long group lesson and £7.50 for a 30-minute private lesson in the UK. One teacher complains: “These days I rarely get more than a couple of lessons.” Another notes that “every other class I clicked on was already assigned” which was “demoralising” and “humiliating”. A teacher with primary school-aged children says she was forced to book late-night classes at 10pm and 11pm because they were the only slots available, but it left her “too tired to function the next day”.
Marina Goncharova, a former British Council teacher who has added her name to the letter, said teachers were living in fear of having no income. “I couldn’t sleep [when I worked for the British Council],” she says. “I couldn’t hang out with my friends. I couldn’t even have a day off because I needed to be ready to book lessons. I was so scared I would be left without work.”
Tom Liebewitz, lead organiser for Tefl Workers’ Union, said teaching shouldn’t come with constant uncertainty: “With zero-hour contracts and agencies like Impellam profiting from a gig-economy model, teachers are left scrambling for hours in a ‘feeding frenzy’, unable to plan for a future, whether that means starting a family or securing a mortgage.”
The British Council said the English Online portfolio offered flexibility to students and teachers. “Teachers benefit from the flexibility of working from home and choose their own hours by assigning themselves to the classes that suit them. During recruitment, teachers are made aware that there is no guaranteed minimum number of hours, and that they should not rely on English Online as their primary income.” A spokesperson added: “We recognise our duty of care to colleagues, are committed to their wellbeing, and comply fully with local employment laws.”
Impellam said: “We cannot comment on individual cases but as a recruitment company, Impellam and all its subsidiaries are fully compliant with UK employment law and committed to treating contingent workers fairly.”
The Foreign Office said: “The British Council is operationally independent of government and is responsible for its own employment practices, strategy and policy.”
