Black teachers are paid less than white teachers, remain underrepresented at leadership level, and are more likely to be pushed from the profession through workplace discrimination than their white peers.
- Black classroom teachers outside London earned 4.5% less on average last year than white counterparts
- 12% of classroom teachers are from Black backgrounds, but among deputy and assistant heads this figure is only 8%, falling further to just 5% of heads
- Retention problems are greater for Black teachers – each year around 8-12% leave the English state school system before retirement, compared to around 6-8% of white teachers.
- Almost 60% of Black teachers described workplace discrimination as a major or minor cause of stress, compared to less than 30% of white teachers.
Given the clear disadvantage experienced by Black teachers, it’s clear that this needs to be much more of a priority for employers and for Government.
The NEU recommends:
For Government:
- Address the loss of Black teachers at every career stage, within all work on recruitment and retention.
- A national strategy to address the specific additional barriers faced by Black teachers.
- Commit to goals around building a diverse teaching profession.
For employers:
- Maintain a pay policy which sets out how pay decisions are made and which is compliant with the Equality Act 2010.
- Give teachers ready access to this pay policy and review it annually in consultation with the teachers and union representatives at the school.
- Set out clear information about their pay structure with transparency over all pay decisions – pay progression, payment of allowances such as TLR payments, and pay for leaders.
- Publish procedures for teachers seeking to review a pay decision in line in line with the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance.
- Provide details of pay outcomes by equality groups.
- Ensure that full information on and access to promotion opportunities is provided to all staff
- Replace discredited and unfair performance related pay systems with automatic pay progression and supportive appraisal.