This blog was written by Cyril Brandt, Gauthier Marchais, Carolina Holland-Szyp and Wezi Mvalo from the Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom; and Samuel Matabishi, Joachim Kasereka Nguhyo, Benjamin Agishecubben and Christian Mtutlani Bijavu from Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu, DR Congo.
Teacher retention is a global educational policy goal. Based on the assumption that stable staffing improves student-teacher relationships and learning outcomes, the policy consensus has coalesced around maximising retention through an array of primarily technical interventions. Limited attention, however, has been paid to the social and political drivers of teacher retention – particularly in conflict-affected contexts.
This blog shares preliminary insights from the ongoing project The Drivers of Teacher Wellbeing and Retention in Contexts of Protracted Violence and Displacement (led by the Institute of Development Studies and funded by the European Commission under the Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa). The project interrogates the prevailing consensus on teacher retention by examining what keeps teachers in their posts in contexts of protracted conflict and displacement, and how the drivers of retention are intertwined with conflict dynamics.
Drawing on interviews with education coordinators in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, our analysis suggests that retention is a relational and socially-embedded process, which resonates with our previous findings on the entanglement of schools in violent conflicts. The interviews point to a diverse set of retention drivers. While material factors, such as salaries and working conditions, play an important role, non-material factors are equally critical, particularly those linked to governance arrangements and social relations.
A recurring theme in the interviews points to what we term social anchoring: the extent to which teachers are embedded in the social, cultural and historical fabric of the communities in which they work. Social anchoring as a condition and a mechanism has multiple facets, including being recognised as ‘from’ a particular area through longstanding social ties; sharing language and cultural reference points with surrounding communities; having access to land under customary land tenure systems; or actively engaging in key communal organisations, most notably religious institutions.
Interviewees consistently point out that teachers with a strong social anchoring are more likely to remain in their posts, even under difficult working conditions or during periods of acute crisis. Such teachers benefit from familiarity, mutual trust, and both formal and informal support networks and are better able to navigate community expectations and social norms. At times, these benefits even extend to physical protection. These relational forms of security can, at least in part, compensate for low and irregular salaries, heavy workloads or weak formal oversight.
Situating these observations within the political landscape of the Kivus complicates the picture. South Kivu’s recent history has been shaped by decades of violent conflict, population displacement, and intense political struggles over land, citizenship and authority. In this context, social anchoring is not neutral. Histories of political violence have crystallised sharp distinctions between insiders and outsiders, between those recognised as legitimate occupants of a territory and those cast as newcomers or strangers. These socially-constructed distinctions continue to structure everyday life, shaping patterns of trust, support and protection.
This matters because the same social structures that help retain, support and protect some teachers can simultaneously exclude others. A lot of teachers lack strong social anchoring, including those posted outside their home territories, those facing ethnocultural or linguistic exclusion, or those without family networks. These teachers may encounter subtle but persistent barriers to integration, or more overt ones. They may feel less secure, less recognised or less protected. In some cases, even community-based protection mirrors these dynamics: local defence practices may protect schools and teachers deemed to belong, while reinforcing boundaries around who counts as part of the community.
From a conflict-sensitive perspective, retention is a double-edged phenomenon: it can signal resilience and collective support, but it can also reproduce hierarchies shaped by conflict, displacement and contested claims to belonging.
These insights have important implications for education policy and practice in conflict-affected settings. Efforts to strengthen teacher retention cannot rely solely on formal incentives or administrative fixes. They must also engage with the relational dimensions of schooling and the historical legacies that shape inclusion and exclusion at the community level. Teacher governance is inherently political and entangled with conflict dynamics. Recognising these political and social dimensions of retention means approaching teach retention with greater awareness of the conflict dynamics within which teachers’ lives and work are embedded.
Project website
The Drivers of Teacher Wellbeing and Retention in Contexts of Protracted Violence and Displacement
Acknowledgment
This publication was funded by the European Union, under the Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa’s Window 3, implemented by the Finnish National Agency for Education. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
