TUI: Invest in school system or invest in prisons

IF we don’t put cash into the education system then we’re going to have to put it into the prison service, warned a school equality expert.

Marian Cox, chairwoman of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) equality council, was discussing a recent survey on the continuing failure of Government to implement anti-racism policies and services in schools.

She made several references to the tragic death of 15-year-old Toyosi Shittabey on Good Friday.

She said: “If you don’t put it [more money] into the education system, you’re going to have to put it into the prison service.”

Despite an unprecedented influx of immigrants over the past decade — with the 2006 census noting that more than 420,000 people from 150 different nations, including 40,000 black or African people, now call this country home — Ireland’s anti- racism in schools policy is ad-hoc and inadequate at best.

While one in four teachers have seven or more ethnic minority students in a single class, the TUI survey of 442 teachers found that half are working in schools with no anti-racism policy.

And though one in three teachers are aware of a racist incident involving students in the past month, the majority receive no expert support in how to address these issues.

Three in four teachers surveyed said English language support- services for ethnic minority students are inadequate, but the Department of Education refuses to provide this service after two years, regardless of needs.

Ms Cox, who worked on the document alongside TUI deputy general secretary, Annette Dolan.

For the past decade teacher unions have repeatedly asked the Department of Education to offer specialist training to help staff cope with the issues associated with multi-cultural classrooms.

However, despite these calls, the Government has instead decided to cut the Equality Authority — which provided some support. Services are now under the auspices of the Department of Justice, which by its very nature takes a different approach to dealing with racial issues.

Similarly, while the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has drawn up some inter-cultural guidelines for school staff, no in-service training is being funded to implement them.

Ms Dolan summed the problem up as “no services, no support, no funding equals a growing problem”.

The main difficulty, Ms Dolan explained in the survey, is that senior Cabinet members seem to believe because the number of migrants coming to Ireland is falling, the issue of race relations is ceasing to matter.

In reality, with the first generation of “new Irish” children growing up, the direct opposite is the case.

She warned that “the consequences are clear”.

The TUI is to meet with school management groups IVEA and ACCS in the coming weeks in an attempt to force Ireland to draw up our first draft nationwide anti-racism policy document for schools.