Shaping the future for black and ethnic minority teachers

Merseyside universities are this week hosting a conference to highlight the importance of recruiting and retaining black and minority ethnic trainee teachers in the North West region.

The Black and Minority Recruitment and Retention Conference is the first conference of the work conducted by the Merseyside Black and Minority Ethnic Steering Group - a collaboration between Edge Hill University, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Chester and Merseyside and Cheshire Graduate Teacher Programme Consortium. It also includes representatives of Merseyside community groups with school-based input who work collaboratively to encourage the recruitment and retention of black and minority ethnic trainee teachers.

The conference itself will aim to look at barriers, perceptions and existing work that is being done, in addition to the importance of sharing good practice.

Pav Akhtar, Head of Diversity at the Training and Development Agency for Schools, will deliver the keynote address. Pav said: "In England, 23.3 per cent of all primary school pupils and 20.6 per cent of all secondary school pupils are of black or minority ethnic (BME) heritage. At the same time, 5.9 per cent of teachers are of BME heritage.

"Increased recruitment of BME teachers is important to ensure white and BME pupils benefit from a more balanced representation of society and the experience of teachers from diverse groups. However, much existing research on the impact on pupil performance has been found to be limited in scope and based on unrepresentative samples."

Edge Hill University, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Chester are very keen to attract potential teachers with a wealth of experience and variety of backgrounds and cultures from within the locality, the regions, nationally and internationally. The universities offer a variety of routes into teaching including flexible part time options in both primary and secondary and those interested can seek further information on the universities web sites.

The Black and Minority Recruitment and Retention Conference takes place on Wednesday 10 February 2010 at Liverpool Hope University. For more details, call Amina Ismail on 0151 231 5340 or e-mail a.ismail@ljmu.ac.uk.