Call for school management to take action against growing threat of racism
On the same day as the funeral of tragic Nigerian teenager Toyosi Shitta-bey, who was stabbed to death in Tyrrelstown last Friday, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) said action is urgently needed to address a potential crisis within the country’s schools.
Noting the findings of a 2009 TUI behavioural and attitudes survey on racism in schools, the union’s deputy general secretary, Annette Dolan, said it was clear measures to tackle the issue were failing ethnic minority students.
And warning of the threat this situation poses to these individuals and the wider public, now and in subsequent years, Ms Dolan said senior TUI officials have met provisionally with the Irish Vocational Education Association and the Association for Community and Comprehensive Schools in an attempt to ensure a national anti-racism school policy is finally drawn up.
“There is a cutback on all educational resources, but when there is a downturn in the economy there is also a rise in racism, so it is imperative for Government to act and learn from what has happened in other countries,” she said.
While ad-hoc anti- racism policies are in place in some schools, the Department of Education has never introduced a full-scale policy targeting the issue.
As a result, the TUI has warned that access to English language support services for ethnic minority students is restricted to just two years regardless of need, that specialist posts have been left unfilled, and that there is no anti-racism policy in place in half of all schools in this country.
Chair of TUI’s equality council Marian Cox said in the past 12 months, the department has cut the number of English language support teachers from five to just two at Balbriggan Community College in Dublin.
The facility, which has students from almost 20 different countries, has just one full-time guidance counsellor and has raised concerns with the department through unions over the likelihood of new students' needs not being met.
However, she said funding has been cut, class sizes have risen, calls for specialist inter-cultural training for teachers have been ignored and the school has been left to organise its own anti-racism policies.
“With language support the argument from the department is that after the students have been here for more than two years they don’t need supports. But to study a curriculum you need much more than that.
“Teachers need training as well because we don’t understand the culture some have come from, but nothing’s done.
“If you don’t put it [more money] into the education system, you’re going to have to put it into the prison service.”
