Teachers need greater support from the Government if they are to meet the challenges in the growing multicultural classroom environment, a teachers’ union said today.
President of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) Ms Catherine Fitzpatrick said the resource infrastructure now available to teachers to respond to the needs of students from different ethnic groups are "inadequate and limited to a select number of schools".
Ms Fitzpatrick was speaking at an ASTI seminar on multicultural education organised in response to the increasing demand from secondary school teachers for in-service support and training on a consistent basis.
ASTI’s Ms Gemma Tuffy said up to one-quarter of Dublin inner-city school children are of ethnic minority groups.
She said teachers are getting little support to meet the new and diverse needs of their pupils such as teaching students who have very little English, who have different religious and cultural values or who are asylum seekers.
"Often teachers take on tasks, such as helping pupils without guardians seek refugee status, on a voluntary basis but may not know exactly what to do," Ms Tuffy said.
As well as in-service training, the union called for greater access to specialist teachers, an adult education service for parents of non-national children and an increase in the number of home-school liaison teachers to work with families of ethnic minority students.