SOME PARENTS are removing their children from schools with large numbers of foreign-national pupils, despite evidence that diversity in the classroom does not have a detrimental effect on learning, Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan has said.
Addressing an intercultural education conference in Dublin yesterday, he said so-called "white flight" was an issue that required wider debate and understanding. He pointed to OECD research that showed educational outcomes were marginally better in schools with a migrant presence.
"There's a perception among some parents that a lesser education is being delivered because of immigrants. It's a myth, but it's better to discuss it so that fears can be allayed," he said.
"It is important to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that parents and students have confidence in the inclusive education that is provided in all our schools and not move from one school to another solely because the profile of the student population has changed."
Referring to the recent controversy caused by Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes's suggestion that some form of "segregation" might be required for foreign children who spoke little English or Irish, Mr Lenihan said the focus on one word "obscured the facts of the situation and raised unnecessary fears".
Many schools already provided immersion language classes for some of their migrant children for the initial period of adjustment in the Irish school system.
"I have no difficulty with that approach being taken, where the professional judgment is that this represents the best way of achieving the desired result. Neither do I have a difficulty with schools adopting a different approach.
"I do not believe that it is possible to adopt a 'one size fits all' approach in this matter."
Mr Lenihan said that many immigrant parents told him they believed Fine Gael were attempting to raise fears among native parents at the beginning of the school year. "We've never been against it [immersion], so we didn't understand why Fine Gael were making an issue of it. Even the most rudimentary research on Mr Hayes's part would have showed this is already happening."
He also indicated that his office had received representations from some foreign ambassadors in Ireland during the "segregation" controversy, and was at pains to distance the Government from the term.
"I want to make it clear, in response to representations made to me and my office by members of the diplomatic corps on the issue of segregated education, that the Government does not support the concept, but wishes to support the integration of children in education, as in other fields," he said.
The Minister said that Irish schools had coped remarkably well with the demographic changes of recent years, and the Government's recent decision not to issue prescriptive guidelines on the hijab reflected a belief that schools were best placed to reach sensible accommodation on such issues.
