Government backs finding against ban on teachers joining BNP

The review into whether teachers belonging to racist groups should be banned from schools was carried out by former chief inspector for schools Maurice Smith, who found such a move "would be disproportionate to the level of risk".

He also found it would be unworkable as "there is no evidence of where to draw the line if a ban were considered".

In its response, the government has accepted the review's findings and backed measures put forward by Smith to improve monitoring of racist incidents and for Ofsted to get tougher on schools that fail to tackle racism.

Under the new measures, Ofsted will report schools rated as ‘inadequate' regarding equal opportunities and community cohesion.

The review found that membership of racist groups by teachers and school representatives was minimal. Over the past seven years just four teachers and two governors have been publicly identified as being members of such groups.

The General Teaching Council has only recorded nine incidents of teachers making racist remarks or being found with racist material, such as leaflets, over the same period.  

Smith said: "Although police and prison officers are banned, to ban more than half a million teachers from joining a legitimate organisation would take this to a different scale of magnitude."

Smith has been asked by children's secretary Ed Balls to carry out an additional review into racism among unqualified teachers within independent schools.

NUT general secretary Christine Blower has welcomed Smith's findings, referring to his final report as "measured and proportionate".