Organisations fighting for equal rights and equal pay for women say that the glass ceiling remains “firmly intact” in Scottish schools as new figures show - in secondaries, at least - that while the profession is populated by many more women, men are far more likely to become headteachers.
Scotland’s largest teaching union believes headteachers’ “crippling workload” is putting women off applying for the posts - and that the situation could get worse as the Scottish government moves forward with its plans to place more responsibility and power into the hands of headteachers.
One women’s rights organisation claims that a lack of women in the top jobs in the country’s secondary schools has helped to create a “toxic environment” for girls where there are “epidemic levels of sexual harassment and sexualised bullying”.
The claim follows reports and research from organisations such as Girlguiding UK revealing that girls are being subjected to shocking levels of abuse in school, including groping and verbal harassment.
One Scottish high school pupil, Katie Horsburgh, made a short film about the problem, in which girls talk about being groped under desks, having their skirts lifted and boys thrusting their crotches in their faces - all during the course of the school day.
New Scottish government figures show that the proportion of teachers who are female falls at each level of seniority in schools. In secondary, 65 per cent of teachers are female, compared with only 41 per cent of headteachers.
In primary, the divide is less stark: some 90 per cent of all teachers are female, compared with 86 per cent of headteachers.
‘Faulty’ system
According to the EIS teaching union, “the systems which should enable career progression for women in teaching are faulty”.
It is calling for recruitment processes to be thoroughly “equality-checked” and for equality training to be provided for all involved in recruitment. It also wants “distributive leadership” to become a reality in schools, as opposed to having “the full weight of running a school on one pair of shoulders”. However, the union suggests that Scottish government plans to increase the power of headteachers could make things worse, not better.
Responding to the figures showing the proportion of women in headteacher posts in secondary, Stephen McCabe, children and young people spokesman for councils’ umbrella body Cosla and leader of Inverclyde Council, says he is confident local authorities will reflect on the figures and “take appropriate action to support and encourage more women to apply for promoted posts”.
He continues: “At a time when we are struggling to attract applicants for headteacher posts across the country, we need to ensure we are making the most of the pool of talent we have in our schools.”
Cosla adds that more than half of directors of education are women and that, within education, schools’ family-friendly policies, regular equal pay audits and gender pay gap analyses “continue to help councils address any barriers to women progressing to promoted posts”.
The Scottish government says that the gap between the proportion of female teachers in promoted posts and the proportion in the workforce as a whole is “longstanding”, but adds that this does not make it acceptable.
The gap has been narrowing for more than a decade, it adds. Across all sectors, females made up 77 per cent of all teachers but 79 per cent of headteachers.
This is an extract of an article published in 19 January edition of Tes Scotland. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. Tes Scotland magazine is available at all good newsagents.
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