BLACK and Asian teachers are being robbed of promotion prospects because of institutionalised racism in schools, a new report has found.

A study of 10,000 teachers by the University of North London found that 21 per cent of white teachers with at least 15 years’ experience had become heads or deputy heads while only 12 per cent of their black colleagues and 14 per cent of Asian teachers had done so.

Professor Alistair Ross, of the University’s Institute of Policy Studies, said governing bodies and recruitment panels were not choosing ethnic-minority candidates because they tended to mis-read their responses at interview.

Employers were misinterpreting racial differences in demeanour, such as body language, levels of confidence and attitude, leading them to draw the wrong conclusions about their suitability for positions of responsibility, Professor Ross said.

He added: “Whatever the intentions of the individual teachers, school governing bodies, local education authority officials, civil servants or elected politicians, this situation can only be described as institutionalised racism.

“The appointment process is clearly working in such a way that black and Asian teachers are significantly less likely to assume positions of responsibility.

“The trend is apparent from as early as two to three years into the profession when white teachers begin to leave their black and Asian colleagues behind. The typical white teacher will be progressing from the main scale to positions of responsibility by their late 20s and becoming heads or deputies in their 30s, but this is not happening for ethnic-minority staff, who are leaving the profession at a faster rate and are either not being promoted at all or achieving it much later.”

There were no figures showing how many ethnic-minority teachers had applied for positions of responsibility, but it was probable that they were applying and not being appointed, he said.

Although ethnic-minority teachers who pointed to explicit examples of racism were exceptional, many were leaving the profession because they felt that promotion was beyond their reach, he added.

However, many Asian staff were probably leaving to enter more upwardly mobile and highly rewarded careers in sectors such as finance, he said.

The study, which included 879 black or Asian teachers, found that 5 per cent of white teaching staff were headteachers, while only 2 per cent of black teachers and 2 per cent of Asian teachers were heads.

In total, the survey recorded 442 white headteachers, seven black headteachers and seven Asian heads.

The new data, which tracked the career paths of white, black and Asian teachers in 932 schools in 22 English LEAs, showed a preponderance of main-scale teachers from ethnic minorities.

Only 40 per cent of white teachers were on the main scale, while 50 per cent of ethnic-minority teachers had not gone beyond it.

The average age of qualification for black and Asian teachers was between one and 2.3 years later than for white teachers. About 5 per cent of teachers are from an ethnic minority background, compared with 12 per cent of pupils.

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‘COVERT RACISM’ HELD ME BACK

Dwight Smiley, 50, from Luton, who is of Jamaican origin, left mainstream teaching after five years because he felt institutionalised racism was thwarting his prospects.

He was the only black teacher in school when he started as a humanities teacher at a Buckinghamshire comprehensive in the early Eighties.

He said: “After about two years, my 11-18 age group were getting excellent results.

“When the departmental head left, he suggested I apply for the position but it was not advertised and a younger, white member of staff who had joined the school a year and a half after me was appointed. I felt extremely sidelined and could see no reason other than covert racism to explain it.

“A few years later the post of pastoral head of humanities came up, but again I was not considered and the job was given to a white teacher. This was despite the fact that I was now the most highly-qualified person in the department, having completed a part-time MA.

“It was not until I moved into a specialist role raising achievement among ethnic minority pupils that my ethnic origin ceased to be a barrier.

“The fact that I was black was seen as an advantage, allowing me to move up the scale relatively quickly to become head of the Ethnic Minority Achievement Project.”