Voice: Media interview: Male primary school teachers

Wednesday, 01, Oct 2008 12:00

General Secretary Philip Parkin interviewed on a number of local BBC radio stations, including BBC Radio Derby, about TDA survey on male primary school teachers and their importance as role models for boys.

Men currently account for just 13 per cent of registered primary school teachers, according to recent figures released by the General Teaching Council.

Philip Parkin: "It’s not surprising, but it’s got worse in the last 20 years. We know that the percentage of male teachers in schools in general and in primary schools in particular has gone down in that time.

[on teacher recruitment campaigns] "It’s mainly females. I understand – of course the applications haven’t closed for this year – the last figures I saw indicated a slight increase in males this year, but it’s nothing significant. It’s not great.

[teaching not seen as ‘male’ profession?] "I think there’s two things and I think that’s one of them. I think there’s been a downwards spiral for a number of years. As you’ve got more and more females being teachers, then as pupils themselves have gone through school and been taught by predominantly female teachers, they’ve seen it as a female profession, so when young males have come to choose their own profession they haven’t thought about teaching because they’ve seen it as female. That’s one of the reasons.

"The other reason, I think, is the plethora of unfounded allegations against male teachers, and I think that’s discouraged people from entering the profession because they’ve seen it as a dangerous place to be for a male.

[allegations from pupils?] "Yes, false allegations from pupils, unfounded allegations – and there have been quite a few of them over the last ten years – and so I think that’s changed people’s perception of whether they should be in school or not, particularly working with young children.

[impact this has on schools and pupils] "Yes, it’s the absence of the male role model and it’s also the way that society’s changed over the last 15 to 20 years. We’ve got far more pupils in school nowadays who come from one parent families and, generally speaking, those one parent families have a female parent rather than a male parent, so at home the children aren’t getting a male role model and at school, because of the predominantly female teaching profession, they aren’t getting a male role model.

"They aren’t seeing how adult males and females behave towards each other, react towards each other. They aren’t learning how to grow into an adult male.

[over 800 men surveyed. Is this significant enough?] "Yes, I think so. The overall statistics showing that there are only 13% male teachers in primary schools and only about 24% overall in the profession, are a serious concern and the figures are going downwards all the time.

[how can this be turned around?] "I don’t think there’s going to be an instant answer to this. I think it’s going to be like slowing down an oil tanker and turning it round. There’s clearly a marketing job to be done to encourage people to understand that being a teacher is an appropriate role for a male.

"We’ve got to offer young people the opportunities to come into schools when they’re considering their career choices and to experience the excitement and the joy of teaching young children, and bringing them on and just encouraging them in that way to think of it as a serious career choice."

ends

philipparkin@voicetheunion.org.uk

pressoffice@voicetheunion.org.uk