Do not charge visa applicants for the pressures of eastern Europeans; teachers are part of the solution for integration

Speaking at the Association of Teachers & Lecturers conference in Liverpool at lunchtime on 8 April 2009 Keith Best, Chief Executive, IAS said that the face of Britain is changing constantly and more rapidly in its diversity than ever before.

"That diversity is not now coming from just the traditional routes from the Commonwealth countries but from Europe itself" he said. "It is interesting how, since the accession of the 10 states (including the A8 from eastern Europe) to the EU on 1 May 2004 the main cause of public immigration concern has shifted away from the Indian sub-continent and Africa to eastern Europe. The advent of up to 1m workers from those countries has coincided with a clamp-down on non-European Economic Area nationals being able to enter the UK. For example, there is now no legitimate immigration route for lower skilled workers to come from out side the European Economic Area.

"Undoubtedly, being engaged mainly in fruit and vegetable picking (these jobs only are available for Bulgarians and Romanians: the A2) and other lower skilled jobs means that certain parts of the UK such as East Anglia and Lincolnshire have taken a disproportionate number. Other places such as Slough have also felt the impact.

"The Roman poet expressed it as "The times are changing and we must change with them." So we must but in a sensible, planned way and not in a knee-jerk, tabloid gratification which, sadly, so characterises some of the responses that we have seen from Government.

"At least there is now recognition that some communities are bearing a disproportionate burden hence the creation of the risibly small £50m fund from the Department for Communities. Yet the LGA have indicated that at least £250m is needed to compensate local authorities for the cost of special teaching for students with languages other than English and for social care.

"Clearly, we are into an upstaging round on the size of the pot available for we now have the recent announcement that all visa applicants will face a surcharge of £50 to go towards these costs. That will raise a paltry £70m but, more importantly, will target the wrong people as the Europeans do not need visas yet often it is they who create the extra work. Eastern Europeans often have little command of English since until the fall of the Berlin Wall they were being taught Russian rather than English in their schools. Contrast that with those coming from Commonwealth countries as the legacy of empire whose institutions are based on British ones, for many of whom their official language is English and all of whom have a diaspora of their own citizens who have been settled in the UK for several generations.

"We know the nature of the problem as the Government figures show that the share of pupils in England's schools speaking English as a second language has risen. 14.4% of primary school pupils spoke a language other than English as their first language in 2008 - a rise of 0.9% on 2007. It was 10.5% in 2004, the year before the main European Union expansion, and has almost doubled since 1997. In secondary schools, the proportion rose from 10.6% to 10.8% over 2007-08. These figures indicate that 470,080 pupils in primary schools and 354,300 pupils in secondary schools do not have English as their first language and that clearly the main effect is felt through eastern Europeans.

"Many of these pupils are concentrated in areas such as inner London where 53.4% of pupils do not speak English as a first language. I recognise that you as teachers say helping children who do not speak English as their mother tongue places extra demands on schools and that your Association of Teachers and Lecturers has called for extra funding.

"Interestingly, the figures show that there is a slightly larger percentage of ethnic minority pupils in both primary and secondary schools increasing from 21.9% in 2007 to 23.3% in 2008 with a similar trend in secondary schools rising from 18% to 19.5% over the same period. The biggest ethnic minority group is Asian with 8.9% of primary school pupils and 7.4% of secondary pupils. 4.8% of primary pupils and 4.1% of secondary pupils were classified as black. Nevertheless, before activists go off shouting that the whole face of Britain is changing, we should remember that white pupils still dominate and represent 80% of primary pupils and 82.5% of secondary pupils in England overall.

"Then there is evidence of some parts taking the extra burden such as Swindon whose pupils speak 91 languages and those speaking English as a second language has risen from 6.5% in January 2007 to 8.5% in October 2007. Another case study is Wrexham which over the past 18 months has seen the number of pupils with English as a second language go from 300 to 500, although this still represents just 4% of the school roll. Last September there were 70 new admissions to the schools about 50 of these children being Polish.

"I want to make clear that the teachers whom I have heard do not object to diversity in their classrooms - indeed there is considerable evidence that overseas pupils work harder, learn faster and can elevate the overall achievement of a class. The evidence is that Chinese, pupils of Mixed White and Asian heritage and Indian pupils consistently achieve above the national average across Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 but Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils perform below the national average across all Key Stages.

"The complaint from the teachers is about resources to ensure that all children get a quality education. Government must continue to heed that call and I know that new guidance for teachers to work with new arrivals has been issued and recent consultation, including ATL, on how to release funding when needed - for example during the term, if an influx of migrant children arrive.

"Teachers are, after all, in many ways the solution. If they can teach children who are newcomers not only English but also about the British way of life and our heritage then those who become citizens will have had a secure basis for their lives in the UK."