This Commonwealth Secretariat document provides the full text of the Commonwealth teacher recruitment Protocol, adopted by Ministers of Education on September 1st, 2004. The Protocol aims to balance the rights of teachers to migrate internationally, on a temporary or permanent basis, against the need to protect the integrity of national education systems, and to prevent the exploitation of the scarce human resources of poor countries. Starting by outlining the background and purpose of the Protocol, the document states that a number of Commonwealth member countries have been concerned at the loss of scarce professionals as a result of targeted recruitment programmes, a problem that has caused particular difficulties for small states.