TUI:Foreign students should be provided with extra language tuition as part of a wider approach to prevent immigrants from being ghettoised, the Teachers' Union of Ireland has said.
In their new policy paper on the issue, the TUI said additional language staff should be recruited and recommends that home school liaison officers familiar with traditions in students' native countries be appointed to help ease their integration.
John O'Reilly, acting assistant general secretary of the TUI, said foreign students were being isolated from their Irish counterparts because they were unable to speak English. He said if the trend continues it would create "terrible problems" for society in the future.
Mr O'Reilly said some schools, in areas such as west Dublin where a high concentration of immigrants live, have over 100 foreign students, representing over 20 per cent of the total number of pupils in the school.
"Probably 80 per cent arrive with little or no English," he said. "Around 20 per cent might have been in the country for a year or two but while they have some language skills, they don't have written skills."
Mr O'Reilly said a hierarchy of students was developing in some schools where some foreign students were being isolated and victimised.
"Racism is starting to happen," he said. "I don't think Irish children are inherently racist but when you put a cohort of pupils in there who can't speak the language you isolate them."
He said foreign students were frustrated because they did not understand what was going on around them.
"They don't achieve their potential whatsoever," he said. "They just can't. You see very bright children failing the Leaving Cert because they don't have the language." Mr O'Reilly said the problems were worst in public sector schools in disadvantaged areas and said students would benefit from six months or a year of intensive English courses.
Currently schools receive one extra teacher for the first 14 foreign students they take in and one more when that figure reaches 28.
During her address to congress, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin outlined that 550 extra language resource teachers would be appointed in primary and post-primary schools as part of the Towards 2016 agreement.
Ms Hanafin also removed the two year limit on extra language tuition if it was shown that foreign students required more support.
However, Mr O'Reilly warned that parents of foreign students could conceivably take the Department of Education to court for failing to adequately provide for their children's educational needs. He also said that teachers have difficulty coming to terms with the different cultural traditions of foreign students.