Mission Statement

Happy Schools is a non-profit organization which facilitates the provision of safer, more effective ESL/EFL classrooms for young learners worldwide.

We do this by:

• providing a centralized police check and registration service for teachers
• promoting higher hiring standards for schools
• creating professional development opportunities for teachers
• sponsoring initiatives to advance English education and children's rights worldwide

Background

For a small but insidious group of people, the exploding TESOL opportunity is too attractive to pass up. They are convicted criminals or fugitives from justice, often pedophiles, and they are discovering in growing numbers that the world's thirst for English will open doors to them abroad that are closed to them at home. Most private English schools around the world don't request criminal records checks when they hire western teachers. The reasons vary from naivety to an inability to process and/or understand foreign criminal records check documentation. Whatever the individual case may be, the industry-wide repercussions are obvious and disturbing. The TESOL phenomenon is being exploited by those who mean to do harm, by those who can and should be stopped.

Happy Schools was founded to do just that. We believe it is easier to keep convicted criminals from gaining employment as ESL/EFL teachers than it is to catch them in the act of exploiting the opportunity. We work closely with partner organizations to give children studying English abroad the same protection children studying in western public schools automatically enjoy: screened teachers.

Bottom Line

Our goal is to make the teaching experience more accessible and more enjoyable for those who deserve it while making it inaccessible to those who do not.