“The biggest concern for me was the fact that we have got professional teachers in schools in Scotland who exhibit blatant racism.”
Those were the damning words from Ken Muir, chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland last week.
In an exclusive interview with Tes Scotland, Muir said that he was “sickened” by much of what he had heard from teachers in recent months.
He recalled the case of one probationer who wanted to quit teaching after being subjected to racist comments from pupils and staff.
And, sadly, the story isn’t an uncommon one, according to Muir. He says too many black and minority ethnic (BME) teachers have not received “the level of support a white teacher would have got”, and, whether intentionally or not, have been subject to some forms of abuse.
The blame doesn’t lie solely with schools, he adds. “Local authorities still saying, ‘Racism isn’t an issue in our authority. We don’t have any black and multi-ethnic families in this part of Scotland’ - you think, well hold on a minute, what kind of society are your weans coming out into? It is increasingly a much more multicultural, multi-ethnic society, and how are you preparing them for that?”
Muir’s comments come after official figures revealed that just 1.4 per cent of Scotland’s teaching workforce were from a BME background. This is equivalent to 672 teachers. Government statistics also showed that BME teachers were less likely to gain promotion, with just 75 teachers from BME backgrounds occupying 0.6 per cent of promoted posts in schools.
Muir is a member of a government group set up to increase diversity in teaching. The group has made it clear that everyone involved in education - whether it’s the universities training teachers or the councils employing them - needs to be educated about diversification and how to support it.
