CONCERNS ABOUT both the thrust of policy and the effects of cutbacks in the State’s provision of English language support for immigrant children have been raised in recent days both by national school teachers through the INTO and at last week’s Trinity Immigration Initiative “New Migrations, New Challenges” conference.
The issue is critically important to the challenge of integrating the country’s new Irish and overcoming the inevitable educational disadvantage such children face. Failure will condemn them and second generations of migrant families to social isolation and economic deprivation, laying the basis for the rise in social tensions which countries like France face.
In the current school year, according to the Department of Education, there are about 1,185 language support posts allocated to primary and 365 to post-primary schools – a total of 1,550, down 630 from the 2008/09 level. Some 32,200 pupils at primary level and 6,200 pupils at second level are currently benefiting from English language support in the school system.
Defending the cutbacks the department argues that they “must be seen in the context of overall Government policy on teacher numbers in these difficult times” and insists that “it is clear that the situation has changed and there have been changes in relation to net migration arising from the economic downturn.” Yet there is some evidence that migrants with children in the school system are not those returning home and that the pressure on schools remains largely unchanged. And the danger is that if these children are not provided with the basic language tools they need to begin to function in large classes they will not just be slower in catching up, but could end up as a lost generation.
The cutbacks exacerbate key failings of the programme. The department is right to insist that teaching of children for whom English is a second language must be mainstreamed in all classes and not left to specialist support teachers – the responsibility must be a shared one. Teachers must incorporate language learning into all their class work. But that challenge, undoubtedly resented or simply ignored by some teachers, is made near impossible by the large size of many classes, and by the serious inadequacy of training, both in-service and at college level where it is optional.
The department has supposedly relaxed rules that set teacher allocation on the basis of two years of language support per non-English speaking child. But while school managements may make the case for continued support for individuals if they have not reached a set degree of comptence, the bureaucratic allocation system has also been changed to reduce school entitlements and many teachers believe two years is not, in any case, sufficient to properly equip students for further study.
There is also the suggestion that some schools use allocations of support teachers simply to take up unfilled hours for existing teachers, or to reduce pupil teacher ratios without providing the extra tuition. Clearly the whole system needs a thorough review, and not simply one based on cost-cutting imperatives.