94pc of our school teachers are white
NEW figures reveal a shocking lack of diversity in Greater Manchester’s classrooms.
In the region, 93.7 per cent of teachers in state-funded schools are white. That’s despite white people only making up 82.1pc of residents.
The gap between teachers’ ethnicity and the population is biggest in the Manchester borough, where 89.1pc of teachers are white compared to 63.8pc of the population.
The Department for Education figures have raised concerns among teachers and union representatives.
Samantha Offord is headteacher of Birchfields Primary School in Fallowfield, where 98pc of pupils are from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
She said: “I’m wondering whether at teacher training level more efforts could be put in to attract more ethnic minorities into teacher training so we have a pool of applicants. I know all the teachers I know would eagerly want to recruit. The main issue is we don’t have the applicants for the jobs.”
In Wigan, 99.2pc of teachers are white, but that’s not much higher than the 97pc of residents who are white. The figures for other boroughs are (percentage of population who are white in brackets):
Bolton 91.7pc (80.2pc); Bury 94.9pc (88pc); Oldham 91pc (75pc); Rochdale 92.6pc (79.9pc); Salford 96.5pc (89.1pc); Stockport 96.5pc (91.3pc); Tameside 95.9pc (90.0pc); Trafford 95.2pc (84.2pc).
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “We know that our profession is not yet representative of the communities we serve, and that this is a particular issue at senior leadership level. NAHT is committed to addressing this issue head-on, and is actively supporting efforts to develop diversity within the education profession.”
A Department for
Education spokesman said: “We are committed to increasing the diversity of the teaching workforce and have improved pathways into the profession, increasing the proportion of teacher trainees from minority ethnic groups.”