A new primary schools database provides the most detailed picture yet of the ethnic, cultural and religious profile of children in the primary education system. The findings for the current academic year show that classrooms have never been so diverse.
Almost 50,000 pupils at primary level do not have English or Irish as their mother tongue. Of these pupils, just over a third were Irish nationals, followed by Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian nationals.
When broken down by nationality, some 40,000-plus children are from countries other than Ireland, such as India, Nigeria, China and Pakistan. Although a question on religion was not answered by large numbers of respondents, tens of thousands of students indicated they were members of a range of minority faiths or none at all.
Ireland is now a diverse society and will continue to be. There is still a significant inward flow of migrants, with an increasing proportion in younger age groups. This poses clear challenges for our education system.
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Yet in many ways the State is saddled with a 19th century school system out of keeping with the needs of a 21st-century society, where discrimination of children in admissions policies is still permitted on the basis of religion. This can make it difficult for newcomer children, and others, to access their local school.
Many new arrivals also need supports to overcome language barriers and reach their full potential. But many schools have not clawed back resources that were cut for students in need of English language support during the downturn.
Studies in recent years have found the provision of English language support poorly coordinated or haphazard, with a tendency to assume newcomer students belonged in the same category as students with special educational needs.
Over the past decade, Government ministers have repeatedly said we need to learn from the mistakes of how other European countries have treated migrant communities. Now is the time to make good on those pledges. A failure to do so will lead to lack of opportunities for our migrants, increased racism and the danger of ghettoisation.