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Men: Your classroom needs you

The Government's biggest problem in primaries is the lackof male teachers. Emma Haughton asks, what can be done about it?

Thursday 28 February 2002 01:00 GMT
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Primary teaching has always had a strong appeal, and teacher training providers have generally had less trouble filling their courses than for secondary. Indeed, recruitment to primary in recent years has been very good, confirms Mary Doherty, head of teacher supply and recruitment at the Teacher Training Agency (TTA): "We've met our targets and in many respects exceeded them."

The figures back up her assertions. According to John Howson, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University and an expert on teacher recruitment, at the beginning of February there were 14,000 applications for around 7,000 places on the PGCE course – with true demand likely to be closer to three applicants for every place. Last year for the first time, the one-year PGCE route to primary teaching was more popular than the traditional BEd undergraduate option, and accounted for more than 50 per cent of places. With students on undergraduate courses not qualifying for a grant or suspension of course fees, that trend looks set to continue.

But these optimistic figures mask various local problems. Recruitment is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly in London, the south east and other big cities. One of the challenges facing the TTA is the mobility of prospective teachers, says Howson. "If you go to university and do a PGCE in Yorkshire, then it's a fair bet you want to teach there, but the main recruitment problems are in London and the south east so we need to train more people there. At the moment, the Government is simply hoping that people will migrate, rather than making sure it's training teachers where they are actually needed."

The problem is not just a matter of geography, however. Primary teachers have been placed under enormous pressure by initiatives like the literacy and numeracy strategies, the demands of target-setting and league tables, and a general sea of paperwork. And unlike their colleagues at secondary level, they lack the luxury of non-contact time in which to attempt to get on top of things.

The TTA itself recognises that, at least in the interests of teacher retention, it is a situation that has got to change. "People want an appropriate work-life balance, and we need to see that teaching looks and feels manageable," says Doherty.

This can only mean more teachers. Although pupil numbers reached their peak in 2000 and are now declining, upping recruitment is the only feasible way to reduce class sizes, improve the teacher-pupil ratio, and reduce the workload for teachers, insists David Hart, general secretary at the National Association of Head Teachers: "We need thousands more teachers, which means recruitment will become more difficult. While there are people out there who want to come into primary teaching, the danger is that demand will build up beyond that."

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Government is how to address the entrenched gender imbalance in primary schools, where just 13 to 14 per cent of teachers are men. The situation with male teachers is at crisis level – indeed, they are absent in a large number of primary schools, says Hart: "It's not good for the teaching profession to have such an imbalance in our primary schools, and you need more men in terms of role models for primary children."

Just how to tackle the problem is another matter, he believes: "Good male honours graduates just don't see primary teaching as their niche. We have to make it an attractive career for them, and that means a decent salary structure and work-life balance. Male graduates are looking for a significant boost in salary after they've been in their first job for a few years, and by their late twenties, early thirties, one that is significantly in excess of that offered in a primary teaching position."

But with starting salaries at £17,000-£18,000, and up to £20,500 in London, and a primary head earning anything from £40,000 to £60,000, many argue that the money is no longer the real issue. "Men need to be encouraged to learn more about the joys of primary teaching," says Doherty. "Primary teaching allows you to cover both a depth and breadth of subject knowledge. You can be with your class for a year and see their learning in the round, rather than just in one subject. Primary schools offer great opportunities for working with children in areas of personal interest like sport or the arts. There is considerable opportunity for progress and promotion and, compared with many careers, there are opportunities for many family-friendly hours," she adds.

And it seems that men are beginning to recognise some of these advantages, with 500 more applying by February this year, compared with 2001, bringing the total to 2,300. "It does look like the message is beginning to get through," says Howson. He puts much of the blame for the decline of male applicants on the child protection legislation that came in after the 1989 Children Act. "We had a lot of societal unease about men in the caring profession that we have probably worked through now. We have good checks in place, and there is no reason men shouldn't work as well with young children as women."

But the lack of ethnic diversity in the primary sector may be a harder nut to crack. The TTA wants the teaching profession to represent the ethnic mix of the pupil population, with the current 7 per cent of trainees coming from ethnic backgrounds increased to 9 per cent by 2005. "It's important for all pupils to see their teachers as role models," says Doherty, who is working with teacher-training providers to examine both their geographical areas and where they are recruiting from, with a view to setting voluntary targets.

This may be easier said than done. "African and Caribbean males, for instance, tend to go to schools in under-performing areas and therefore are not motivated to go into higher education in huge numbers," says Howson, "They are falling outside the net before we can catch them as teachers."

That said, Britain has to find ways of bringing these potential recruits back into the academic system. "We can't have situations like in inner London where 50 per cent of children are from ethnic minorities, and not have their teachers reflect that."

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