News Americas, LONDON, England, Fri. 27, 2012: There is a serious under-representation of Afro-Caribbeans from Europe’s oldest black community in education, a study from The University of Manchester claims.
The study was carried out by Professor Bill Boyle and Marie Charles and found that there are just 22 Liverpudlian teachers are from an Afro-Caribbean background, out of 4,192.
Government Department of Education data – as analyzed by the authors – show that in 2010, Liverpool employed two black Caribbean teachers, two black Africans, 12 from other black backgrounds, one white/black Caribbean and five white/black Africans.
“This is scandalous in a city which has had an Afro-Caribbean community for over 400 years – probably Europe’s oldest,” commented Professor Boyle. “Government data shows that England, though one fifth of the school population is multicultural, 95 percent of our teachers are White. In Liverpool, the percentage is even higher: an overwhelming 98 percent of the city’s teachers are White. This almost unanimously white workforce compares unfavorably with London, another city with a traditional Black community/population, which has an 83 percent White teaching workforce.”
Liverpool’s tiny population of black teachers are also faced with a culture of racial prejudice and discrimination both in finding jobs and getting promotion, said the study.
Five of the teachers who took part in the survey are Black Caribbean, six are Black African and four are Black Mixed. From the sample, 66 percent of respondents complained of poor career advancement, racial harassment and inadequate black teacher representation in schools.
