Raising the Attainment of Ethnic Minority Pupils — What Strategies Are Recognised?

Abstract

In the last 40 years there have been continual outcries about the education of children whose parents are not indigenous to Britain. The waves of migration to Britain from the colonies and the wider Commonwealth has intro duced languages, cultures, religions and social customs to Britain and for the most part these have been or are still being absorbed. The original mass school structures were intended to provide literacy and numeracy for the mainly homogenous industrial and working class. Even with post- Beveridge reforms, the Education Reform Act and the National Curriculum and its statutory assessment, there are still enormous challenges for modern educators if the needs of ethnic minority communities are to be met. This fact has been acknowledged in the many initiatives which have followed local Section 11 provision which has sought to meet the needs of the groups in question.