Delegates vote against promotion for women

Delegates at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' conference voted against a motion calling on both local authorities and central government to promote more women to senior jobs. A heated debate was won by speakers who argued that the motion would lead to unfair positive discrimination in favour of women. Peter Smith, the union's general secretary, is a member of the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Out of 32,000 male primary teachers, 48 per cent are heads or deputy heads but only 16 per cent of 149,000 female teachers are heads and deputies, the conference was told. Out of 93,000 male secondary teachers, 9 per cent are heads or deputies compared with 4 per cent of 96,000 female teachers.

Hillary Pollard of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, said: "I am absolutely certain that prejudice is responsible for the tremendous disparity in the figures." Maureen Williams of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, said: "In most primary schools if you call in at break or lunchtime you will find a male head sitting in the staff room like a sultan in his harem."

But Stephen Woodley of Kent argued: "The motion seems to encourage central and local government to practice positive discrimination and positive discrimination scars. We would not demand that the association should discriminate against women. We should not be encouraging the association to support a policy that avowedly discriminates against men."

Stuart Herdson of Bradford, West Yorkshire, said that promotion had to be on an equal footing. "It has to be based on the best person for the job. It would be a really bad thing to see a quota of headmistresses."

A deliberate attempt in his authority to appoint female heads had not been entirely successful. Some had to be moved on after their schools failed inspections, he added.

Ian Potts of Ealing, north-west London, pointed out that while schools could not say that they would appoint only a woman as deputy head they could say that a satisfactory female candidate would be at a positive advantage. Some governing bodies were already doing this. "The glass ceiling, if it is not actually shattered, is at least cracked," he said.

John Parkinson of Doncaster, who proposed the motion, told the conference: "We are not asking for quotas. We are asking for equal opportunities. I am not asking for positive discrimination. I am asking for justice for our women members.