Teaching in a diverse Scotland - increasing and retaining minority ethnic teachers: 3 years on

1. Introduction

'Teaching in a Diverse Scotland: Increasing and Retaining Minority Ethnic Teachers in Scotland's Schools'^[1] was published at the end of 2018. The report was commissioned by the Strategic Board for Teacher Education (SBTE), which has the responsibility for overseeing the national commitment to increase the number of Black and minority ethnic teachers at all levels across Scotland's schools, following the publication of the National Race Equality Framework for Scotland^[2].

At the time of the report's publication, minority ethnic teachers were significantly underrepresented in Scotland's schools, only 1.4%^[3] of the teaching workforce came from a minority ethnic background. In 2019, this increased slightly to 1.6%, where 1.2% of the teaching workforce in primary schools and 1.9% in secondary schools came from a minority ethnic background^[4]. This compares with a minority ethnic population of 4%^[5] in Scotland^[6]. Minority ethnic teachers are also underrepresented in promoted posts - 0.5% and 0.9% in primary and secondary schools respectively⁴.

To achieve the target of at least 4% of minority ethnic teachers in Scotland's schools by 2030, as set in the original report, would mean we need to recruit approximately an additional 200 minority ethnic teachers into the workforce every year from August 2022 to August 2030 inclusive. These teachers would be in addition to the number of minority ethnic teachers currently being recruited annually^[7].

Further to the publication of 'Teaching in a Diverse Scotland: Increasing and Retaining Minority Ethnic Teachers in Scotland's Schools', the SBTE reconvened the Diversity in the Teaching Profession working group in June 2019 with an expanded membership (see Annex A). The group was asked to take forward the report's recommendations by embedding them, as appropriate, into frameworks that facilitated Scottish education.

The working group remit was to:

• meet three times per year to develop, lead, agree and monitor the report's implementation plan contributing to regular requests to update the progress tracker;
• to feedback and advise on relevant knowledge, best practice and data to progress race equality across the sectors that will enhance the recommendations of the report;
• sector leads to feedback to their sectors through appropriate communications channels on the output of meeting discussions and test change ideas and improvements within their sector;
• all activities related to the recommendations to be reviewed by the group in November 2019; and
• report to the Strategic Board for Teacher Education and the Race Equality Action Plan Programme Board on the progress of the recommendations by November 2020.

Due to the pandemic, it was agreed to extend the group's timescale to end of March 2021.

The Teaching in a Diverse Scotland report made seventeen recommendations (Annex B). This report outlines the achievements, and challenges faced, in implementing these recommendations. This report concludes by outlining the work which remains to be undertaken to achieve the aim of a teaching profession which reflects the diversity of Scotland's population.