asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make it his policy to seek to extend his Department's promotion and recruitment procedures, operating on the basis of merit and without reference to the ethnic origin of candidates, to the recruitment of all teachers; and if he will make a statement.
Appointments to teaching posts in maintained schools and establishments of further education are the responsibility of the local authorities and the institutions concerned. My right hon. Friend has recorded, and maintains, his view that the successful applicant for any post should be the one who in the appointing body's opinion is the most suitable for that post. This does not mean that actual patterns of recruitment cannot be improved. Hence my right hon. Friend's acceptance in his statement to the House on 14 March at column 452, that ways might be sought to increase the proportion of the teacher force recruited from ethnic minority groups.