The government is being urged to launch an action plan to improve diversity within the teaching profession, in a report warning that teachers of colour face an “invisible glass ceiling”.
Gaps in the retention and promotion rates between teachers of colour and their peers have widened, despite more people from ethnic backgrounds applying for teacher training, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) report.
An NFER evidence review found that negative experiences during initial teacher training (ITT), such as feelings of isolation, explained why fewer trainee teachers of colour achieved qualified teacher status.
The report, funded by the charity Mission 44, warns that there is no specific government-funded support and few opportunities for aspiring leaders of colour to benefit from tailored mentoring or leadership training.
Experienced teachers of colour feel frustrated by a lack of opportunities for progression, due to an absence of support, unfair treatment and an “invisible glass ceiling”, the NFER said today.
The warning comes five years after the Department for Education issued a statement of intent to increase the diversity of the teaching workforce in 2018, while an initiative to encourage diversity in school leadership finished in 2020.
The problems extend to headship, the report warns, with teachers of colour reporting that a “lack of encouragement” and “preconceptions linked to their culture or faith” are barriers to leadership.
Teachers of colour are encouraged to, or self-select, into middle leadership roles with limited opportunities for further progression, the report highlights.
It recommends a ”long-term process of systemic change” to boost career progression, and making selection panels for senior posts more diverse.
Career progression for teachers of colour
“Concerns about the low representation of people of colour in the teaching workforce are not new but the issue persists despite policy commitments to address it,” said Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the NFER.
Three-fifths of schools (60 per cent) in England had an all-white teaching workforce in 2021-22, with the majority of senior leadership teams (86 per cent) being all-white.
“There needs to be support and encouragement of career progression for teachers of colour, with a firm commitment from senior leaders to provide career advancement opportunities,” Mr Worth added.
The NFER also recommends further areas for research, including the reasons behind low ITT acceptance rates among applicants of colour, and effective recruitment and retention initiatives for teachers of colour.
Here are the NFER’s four main recommendations:
1. Diversity training for senior leaders and governors
Schools need a “positive working environment for teachers and leaders from diverse ethnic backgrounds”, the report urges.
This includes training for staff, senior leaders and governors and initiatives like equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies and improvement plans.
The report further calls on members of multi-academy trust boards, local authorities and governing bodies to “challenge schools to diversify their teaching and leadership teams”.
Schools should also provide “careers advice, development and support for teachers of colour from an early point in their teaching careers”.
2. ‘Prioritise’ interventions in ITT
The NFER found that ITT is the career stage with the greatest losses of people of colour from the teaching workforce.
The government should investigate the causes of low acceptance rates for applicants of colour, the report suggests, and use relevant strategies to address them.
Organisational strategies are further needed in ITT providers to improve completion rates among trainees of colour, such as implementing equality, diversity and inclusion policies.
All ITT programmes should include racial justice in education as part of the curriculum for trainee teachers, the report adds.
This week the Department for Education announced it was combining training frameworks for early career and trainee teachers in a bid to boost recruitment and retention.
3. Provide bursaries and mentoring
The report calls for bursaries to help teachers of colour, especially those from socio-economically deprived backgrounds, to undertake leadership development.
Mentoring support and professional support networks should similarly be available from same-race teachers and leaders, who would be trained and paid to be mentors, it recommends.
At leadership level, in-school coaching should be available to newly appointed headteachers of colour. Teachers of colour make up just 3.6 per cent of headteachers, the report highlights.
National Professional Qualification courses (NPQs) should include “explicit content on leading for social justice”, it says.
4. Government action plan needed
The government should devise an action plan to improve diversity in the teaching workforce, and this commitment should be included in “all relevant policy initiatives”, the NFER says.
The report further recommends that the government should monitor the diversity of teachers and pay gaps linked to ethnic backgrounds in schools and MATs.
The London Assembly has previously petitioned the government to introduce mandatory reporting of the ethnicity pay gap for all employers with 250 or more staff.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
