New figures from the National Education Union show that 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.
The report shows:
- 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.
Commenting on the report, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The ethnicity pay gap among England’s teaching workforce has stayed stubborn for a decade, and this must not go on. The urgent recruitment and retention crisis, in which teachers leave the profession just a few years after qualifying, is contributing to a shortage of Black teachers in senior positions. As well as pay and high workload, these teachers are also leaving because of workplace discrimination.
“As part of the Department for Education’s efforts to solve the recruitment and retention crisis, their strategy must address the loss of Black teachers at every career stage. We must, together, tackle the barriers facing Black teachers. There are so many upsides for students from getting the chance to learn from, and be inspired by, teachers with different backgrounds.”
Sources
Freedom of Information request
School Workforce Census, reporting year 2023
Editor’s Note
NEU house style is to use the word “Black” to refer to people considered to be “politically Black”. This includes all members who self-identify as Black, Asian and any other minority ethnic groups who do not identify themselves as white. Where we disaggregate between different groups of politically Black teachers, we use the wording “Black/Black British”; “Asian/Asian British” etc. for clarity.