THE subject of immigration is right at the centre of the EU referendum debate, but the narrative is almost always negative and is usually about what migrants take out of the UK. So it is refreshing to hear Glasgow City Council talking about the 140 languages that are spoken in the city’s schools and the diversity – and tolerance – it brings to classrooms.
But are schools being properly funded to meet the different needs of the diverse classroom? One Glasgow school, Annette Street Primary, has launched an online crowd-funding campaign for new playground and classroom equipment for its pupils, most of whom come from Romania or Slovakia and can face a range of complex problems.
In an online video launching the campaign, the headmistress Shirley Taylor says the majority of her pupils arrive at the school with little or no experience of education and are unable to speak English. Many will face other challenges too – extreme poverty or over-crowding at home – that, day after day, makes learning difficult. Quite simply, the school needs additional resources.
In many other schools, the parents might rally round and launch a campaign to raise the money needed, but with little experience of English or education, few of the parents at Annette Street are able to help, so the school is doing it for them and is to be commended for doing so.
However, the fact that they are having to raise £5,000 raises bigger questions about the funding of education in Scotland. A £100million fund exists for schools in disadvantaged areas, but councils are not able to target money on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds as they see fit because they have been told by the Scottish Government to maintain teacher number at all costs.
It is hard to see how a cut to teacher numbers could ever be a good thing, but the promise to protect numbers could be an unnecessary straightjacket at a time of tight resources. The struggles of Annette Street Primary also reminds of the bottom line: if we want to seriously tackle the deprivation that affects education in some communities, more money for education will have to be found.
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