Diversity in the teaching profession: Annual data report

2. Key Findings

2.1 Employed teachers

• There has been an increase in the number of minority ethnic teachers working within Scotland’s schools from 980 in 2022 to 987 in 2023 (1.9% of the workforce, a slight increase from 1.8% last year).
• There is a higher proportion of ethnic minority teachers in the secondary sector (2.4% of the workforce) than in the primary sector (1.3% of the workforce).
• Minority ethnic teachers are less represented in promoted posts compared to the profession as a whole, with fewer than 1% of teachers in promoted posts identifying as being from a minority ethnic background.

2.2 New teachers

• The proportion of probationers from an ethnic minority background in both primary and secondary has increased since last year. In 2023, 4.3% of secondary probationary teachers and 2.6% of primary probationary teachers came from minority ethnic backgrounds (figures for 2022 were 3.6% and 2.2% respectively). There is a higher proportion of new teachers coming into the profession from minority ethnic backgrounds, compared to the overall teacher population.
• A lower proportion of ethnic minority probationers are employed in Scottish schools after finishing their probationary year compared to the whole probationer population. From the 2022/23 Teacher Induction Scheme cohort, 40% of primary school probationers from an ethnic minority background were in posts in publicly funded Scottish schools in their first year after probation. This is lower than the probationer cohort as a whole, which saw 62% of primary probationers in posts. However, the percentage of minority ethnic primary probationers in permanent posts the year after their probation was the same as for all probationers at 17%.
• The difference in employment outcomes is smaller in the secondary sector than the primary sector, where 82% of all secondary probationers and 71% of minority ethnic probationers from the 2022/23 Teacher Induction Scheme cohort were employed in posts the first year after their probation.

2.3 Initial Teacher Education (ITE) - Postgraduate Applicants and Acceptances

• As at the UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) January equal consideration deadline (where all applications received must be considered), there were 2,580 Scottish domiciled applicants applying to a UK provider to study Postgraduate Teacher Training in 2024. 7.5% of Scottish domiciled applicants (with a known ethnicity) were minority ethnic, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from 2023.
• In the 2023 cycle, there were 1,890 Scottish domiciled placed applicants to postgraduate teacher training courses at a UK provider, with the vast majority accepted to Scottish providers. Of those with a known ethnicity, around 6.7% were minority ethnic an increase of 1.4 percentage points from 2022.

2.4 Initial Teacher Education (ITE) - Entrants and Qualifiers

• No new data on university entrants or qualifiers is available since last year’s report. As reported last year, in 2021-22, 165 or 4.5% of UK-domiciled entrants to ITE programmes at Scottish HEIs came from ethnic minority backgrounds. The proportion of entrants from ethnic minorities was higher on postgraduate courses at 5.2% compared to undergraduate courses at 3.4%. All three percentages are noticeably higher than 2016-17 when only 2.7% of UK-domiciled entrants were from an ethnic minority background, including 3.3% and 1.3% to postgraduate and undergraduate courses respectively. A six-year time series is provided in Tables 5.3 and 5.4.
• There were 110 UK-domiciled qualifiers from ITE programmes at Scottish HEIs from an ethnic minority background in 2021-22. This represents 3.5%, an increase from 2.7% in 2016-17. The proportion of postgraduate qualifiers went up from 2.6% to 4.3% over the same time period, with the proportion of undergraduate qualifiers increasing from 2.2% in 2016-17 to 2.5% in 2021-22.

2.5 Ethnicity data disclosure rates

• In 2023 the number of teachers in Scotland not disclosing their ethnicity on the Teacher Census remained at 3%, the same as in 2022. There were also 3% of teachers where the ethnicity was reported by the local authority as ‘Unknown’.
• The percentage of teachers identifying as being from an ethnic minority background is lower than this, at 2%. Continuing to reduce the incidence of teachers with an unknown ethnic background is fundamental to developing robust and informed policy, as well as providing a baseline to accurately record progress in meeting the 4% target set out in the Teaching in a Diverse Scotland report (2018).