The recent statements made by Brian Hayes of Fine Gael with regard to segregating immigrant children in the classroom have struck a raw nerve, but also solicited approving letters to national newspapers from people who know even less about the actual situation than he does.
While the letter writers have some excuse, Deputy Hayes – as Fine Gael’s frontbench spokesman on education – would do well to research his subject matter before launching public relations initiatives in his area of alleged expertise.
To me, it appears his statement about “segregation” was initiated to coincide with the start of the new school year and, by inference, frighten Irish parents into thinking that their children would not receive an adequate education because of the presence of immigrant children with language difficulties. It was a blatantly deliberate attempt to stoke dormant fears of ‘white flight’ from Irish schools because of migrant children in the classrooms.
While some parents do move their children from certain schools in the belief that they will get a better deal for them in other schools in better-off areas, the vast majority tend to stick with their local school.
This phenomenon is already well known, not least in my own and Deputy Hayes constituency, and was well established long before we experienced inward migration.
Neither the State nor parents, nor indeed Deputy Hayes’ constituents, have or should have any interest in having this phenomenon of people choosing to bypass the local school become a mainstream choice or preference by parents.
If parents were to respond to the fears being stoked by Fine Gael, it would involve a regressive hollowing out of good schools dealing directly with disadvantage, and a progressive deterioration of the schools system – with disadvantaged children forced to seek out schools without disadvantaged status – to a point where, in resource terms, the system would become unmanageable.
It seems that Deputy Hayes, at least in his television appearance on this issue, was unaware of the fact that the Department of Education is spending over €100m on extra teaching language supports, including 2,000 additional language teachers, to ensure that ordinary pupils are not discommoded by the presence of immigrant children with language difficulties.
It is my responsibility at the Department of Education to monitor and review the effectiveness of this educational scheme of intervention. So much for Deputy Hayes’ unfounded assertion that I have no budget. Even a cursory inquiry by him could have established that I have a budget line both in education and at the Department of Justice to encourage greater integration.
A recent OECD report further punctures the lie being perpetrated by Deputy Hayes and others that the presence of immigrant children in schools has an adverse effect on the average pupil’s attainment. The report found, in fact, that countries with larger immigrant populations did better on balance than those countries with fewer immigrants.
In a relatively short period of five years, the teaching resources being given to help with language in the classroom in Ireland have been ramped up from 263 in 2003 to nearly 2,000 such teachers in our country’s schools today.
As well as that, the Department of Education and my officials are reviewing this resource from an integration perspective, with a view to making it even more efficient.
Irish parents should therefore ignore the latest blather emanating from Fine Gael. Evidence from around the world shows that immigrant parents are very strongly motivated to ensure the best educational outcome for their children, and in some settings actually lift attainment levels across the board.
It seems to me that some of the younger spirits in Fine Gael today prefer pure assertion to hard fact, and kite-flying instead of the hard graft of serious engagement with policy analysis.
