HC Deb 03 July 1985 vol 82 cc148-50W
Mr. Hancock

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many women teachers there were working (a) in primary education and (b) secondary education in each year of the period 1979 to 1985; and in what disciplines.

Mr. Dunn

Information on numbers of teachers by sex is available for full-time teachers for the years 1979 to 1984:

Full-time qualified teachers in maintained nursery, primary and secondary schools in England (thousands)
Primary* Secondary
Men Women Men Women
31 March
1979 42.4 144.4 †128.2 102.3
1980 41.5 142.1 †127.9 †104.7
1981 40.0 136.8 127.0 105.3
1982 38.5 131.8 126.1 104.7
1983 37.1 127.6 125.0 104.4
1984 (provisional) 35.8 125.4 123.1 103.6
* including nursery schools
† Because of reclassification, figures for 1980 and later years are slightly higher than they would have been on the 1979 classification.

Annual information on subject of qualifications is available only for graduate teachers. Information on subjects of qualifications of all teachers in secondary schools from the 1984 secondary school staffing survey is as follows:

Sujects of qualifications of full-time teachers in maintained secondary schools in England (January 1984)
Percentage of all reported subjects of qualification†
Subject Men Women
per cent. per cent.
Mathematics/remedial mathematics 10.5 6.8
Computer studies 1.0 0.5
Biology 3.3 4.3
Chemistry 4.0 2.2
Physics 5.1 1.6
Other science subjects (including medicine and health, biochemistry) 7.0 4.9
English/remedial English/English as a second language 7.9 13.7
French 2.8 5.4
Other modern languages/European studies 2.0 3.3
Classical languages and studies 1.1 1.2
History 7.1 6.9
Religious education 2.6 3.7
Other humanities 1.0 1.1
Geography 6.4 4.4
Economics 2.0 1.0
Other social studies 5.3 5.1
Music 1.8 2.5
Drama 1.2 2.6
Art 3.5 5.0
Craft, design and technology/ engineering/architecture and planning 7.6 0.4
Home economics/needlecraft * 8.3
Business studies/vocational studies not covered elsewhere 0.7 1.4
Physical education 7.3 5.8
Careers/health/social/remedial education (not covered elsewhere)/counselling and guidance 1.5 2.4
Education as an academic subject/ specific aspects of education 5.0 2.6
Other subjects, not covered above 2.2 2.7
100.0 100.0
* Less than 0.05.
Due to rounding the sum of the components differs slightly from 100.0.
† Some teachers will be counted under more than one subject. Also, a particular subject is counted each time it occurs in a teacher's qualifications. Some teachers may therefore be counted more than once for a particular subject. Some 300,000 subjects were reported in men teachers' qualifications and 240,000 in women teachers' qualifications:

between 2 and 3 per teacher.

Not all teachers with a qualification in a subject are teaching it. Corresponding information is not available for primary schools.