This week, Ben Bradley MP held a Westminster Hall debate to highlight the importance of male teachers in a primary school setting. Westminster Hall debates give MPs an opportunity to raise local or national issues and receive a response from a government minister.
Mr Bradley held the debate ahead of International Men’s Day, which takes place on Saturday 19th November, to “touch on the impact of the issue on our young people and young boys, and on their mental health and stability”. He argued that “At a time when masculinity and being a man can be portrayed very negatively, and young men increasingly find it hard to figure out what their role in life and in our society might be, leading to all sorts of mental health problems, which I am sure we will discuss over the course of this week in the build-up to International Men’s Day, it has never been more important for them to have a consistent, respectable male role model they trust in their life.”
The Mansfield MP, a vocal critic of equalities legislation, touched on the misuse of the Equality Act 2010 when it came to the issue of male primary school teachers. He argued that the “intention behind the law is that the exact same legislation that is cited in order to support young women into science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, where they are historically under-represented, and into university—even though today’s figures show they are over-represented”. He raised his concerns that he had previously been informed by Education Ministers that there are no schemes aimed at supporting young men to get into primary teaching and expressed his frustration that the Equality Act 2020 is “almost never interpreted” in a way to support men into professions where they are under-represented, despite the law existing to tackle biological sex – both male and female.
Mr Bradley shared some shocking statistics and highlighted the fact that “Out of nearly 17,000 primary schools in England, 3,240 have no male teachers on the payroll whatever—not one. At an average of just under 300 pupils per school, that is nearly 1 million children with no male role model in their education setting.” He also pointed out that the lack of male primary school teaches is a particularly prevalent issue in the East Midlands: “A study for the Institute for Social and Economic Research in May found that nearly a third of all state-funded primary and secondary schools in the east midlands do not have a single male classroom teacher. That is the highest proportion in the country.”
Responding to the debate, the Minister of State for Schools, Nick Gibb MP, thanked Mr Bradley for securing the debate and praised his work on education in his “previous role on the Education Committee and in supporting Mansfield and Ashfield as an education investment area”. The Minister assured Mr Bradley that he is “very happy to continue these discussions with my hon. Friend in the months ahead.”
Commenting on this Ben Bradley MP said:
“Really pleased to have been able to raise the importance of increasing the number of male primary school teachers during my Westminster Hall debate.
“As I said in my speech, there are many challenges facing our schools and I could honestly talk about various issues all day. I have concerns surrounding the financial squeeze that all organisations are feeling from inflation and rising costs, the curriculum, teacher recruitment and retention.. I could go on! However, this is important too, to our wider society, social norms and developing our young people.
“It is vital that we ensure young children have positive, male role models in school. Only 14.1% of primary and nursery teachers are male. Significantly less than 1 in 5! This needs to change. It’s particularly important for the increasing number of children who might not have dad in their life, might have negative relationships at home through abuse or violence, or even just for children to learn about gender, to learn about positive relationships and interactions between men and women.”
