UK: Teacher gender gap widens

Despite government efforts to attract men into teaching, the latest figures show the gender gap is widening. The Higher Education Statistics Agency found that males made up less than a quarter of all teaching qualifications obtained from higher education institutions in 2006-07, the lowest number for five years.

In 2006-07, the number of women qualifying rose by 2% from 23,865 to 24,335, while the number of men fell from 8,065 to 7,610, a decline of 5.7%. The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is taking steps to remedy this imbalance with a new drive to attract more men into teaching, especially in primary schools where only 13% of teachers are male.

The TDA's initiative follows a campaign launched by Alan Johnson, then Education Secretary, earlier last year to put more men into primary schools as he believed that boys needed good role models, but it had little effect.

Johnson's beliefs were somewhat upheld this week with the results of a survey commissioned by the TDA to tie in with its recruitment drive to encourage men to consider teaching young children. The study of more than 800 men found that male primary teachers had acted as fundamental role models to one in two men.

More than a third felt that having a man in charge challenged them to work harder at school and a fifth believed they had helped to build their confidence. Many of them said they felt they could approach male teachers about bullying (50%), or with problems at home (29%) and questions about puberty (24%).

This latest drive follows on from the agency's media campaign which began last January called Turn your talents to teaching in the light of a staffing crisis of a 23% rise in vacancies.

Glossy advertisements promote the benefits of joining the profession, including financial incentives - so-called Golden Hellos - for male-short subjects such as science, mathematics and languages, and up to £9,000 (US$16, 500) tax-free bursaries for jobseekers.

As in most of the rest of the world, teaching in the UK is a female-dominated profession, especially at the primary classroom level. Professor David Baker, who chairs GuildHE which represents higher education colleges, specialist institutions and some universities, said it was important for men to be seen in primary schools.

The 'feminisation' of some professions such as teaching and nursing had made them a no-go area for men, he thought. But Baker pointed to a 'conundrum': the base of these professions was mainly female yet proportionately more men were at the top.

His experience as principal of University College Plymouth St Mark and St John showed that male students who were determined to make primary teaching their career did really well. They were likely to get a headship quite rapidly.

"A kind of inverse bias: it isn't unreasonable to wish to see men get to the top - as you would wish to see women do so in other professions."

But less well-motivated male students felt isolated or suffered from peer-group pressure and the drop-out rate from education courses was higher for men than for women, he said.

"My prediction is that there will not be a significant change (in the percentage of men in teaching) in the next generation."

diane.spencer@uw-news.com