The BBC has said in a report the Department for Education (DfE) should recruit an extra 68,000 teachers from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds so as to reflect England’s pupil demographics. “Just 13% of state-funded schools’ teachers are currently from a BME background, compared to 27% of pupils,” laments BBC News, reporting that its analysis of DfE figures for 2016 “found the number of BME teachers would need to double to accurately reflect the ethnic make-up of the state school pupil population in England”. Janet Sheriff, who the BBC says is the only BME secondary school head teacher in Leeds — where nearly 30 per cent of pupils are non-white — told the public broadcaster that upping the percentage of BME teachers is “an enormous challenge for the whole education system. “It’s vitally important that as our communities become more multicultural our schools reflect the areas where our children grow up,” she said, adding: “I do feel that when schools appoint teachers, there is an unconscious bias where white teachers are often the preferred candidate.” According to the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), ethnic minority teachers “face discrimination and prejudice when applying for jobs, but the