'Paedophile hysteria' is putting men off teaching says Boris Johnson

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Boris Johnson: Warning of a crisis in the classroom caused by 'paedophile hysteria'

Men are being scared away from joining the teaching profession by a wave of "paedophile hysteria", a leading Tory has warned.

Boris Johnson said school staffrooms are increasingly dominated by female teachers because men are afraid of attracting false child abuse allegations.

He spoke out after figures revealed women now outnumber men by 13 to one in primary schools - which have been worst-hit by the male recruitment slump.

Mr Johnson, Conservative higher education spokesman, declared that young boys needed male role models to aid their intellectual development but "potentially brilliant" teachers were deterred from entering the profession because they feared being branded paedophiles.

Even bumping into a child could cause them to run into difficulties, he warned.

Mr Johnson, speaking at a conference of the Independent Schools Council in London, insisted he "did not want to go into bat for paedophiles".

But he claimed society may now be over-egging the problem as he recounted his own experience on a recent British Airways flight.

He said a flight attendant had directed him to sit away from his children, apparently without realising they were his own.

When she did, she apologised but said the airline did not allow lone men to sit next to children they were unrelated to.

"I do think one problem we have got is that we do have a kind of paedophile hysteria in this country and I find it very worrying," he said.

"I think the whole thing has been ever so slightly over-egged. I don't want to attack BA unnecessarily but I think it's pretty bonkers that a grown man can be asked to move away from his children.

"I do think we are over-doing the whole thing and the result is that a lot of brilliant potential male teachers think 'do I want to go through all of that malarky about what I can and can't do'.

"What happens if you bump into someone?

"The result is you have got a ratio of female to male teachers in state primary schools of 13 to 1 now.

"That is a huge social change and the effects of that are very damaging, or potentially very damaging on young male minds.

"Young male minds do need the intellectual inspiration of a male teacher, not because males are any better than females, but it may help them if there's a male model who can help them with their intellectual development."

He added: "I don't want to go into bat for paedophiles but it is a factor in deterring male teachers from thinking about this brilliant profession."

The Mail revealed last year that fewer that 10 per cent of primary teachers are men in some parts of the country.

Meanwhile, in the space of a generation, the proportion of secondary school male teachers has dropped from 55 per cent to 41 per cent.

The figures prompted concern that the lack of male role models is having serious consequences for boys' performance in exams.

Boys now lag behind girls in every major school examination.

However teachers' leaders claim that studies show boys do just as well when taught by women.

 

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