Bilingual staff 'can halt Polish exodus'

Published on Monday 14 April 2008 22:50

A LACK of investment in bilingual school staff could force a "mass exodus" of Polish families – leaving a huge hole in the labour market and crippling the Scottish economy, it was claimed yesterday.

Polish children are allegedly asking their parents to take them home as there is no-one to teach them properly at school.

Economists have already warned that migrant workers could leave because of the plunging value of the pound against the Euro and the Polish zloty. Now business leaders claim Polish pupils are feeling isolated and foreign workers do not want to sacrifice their children's education.

Polish groups and MSPs are calling for further assistance to be given to help workers' children to learn English.

Zosia Wierbowicz-Fraser, the chairwoman of the Inverness Polish Association, said there were not enough language assistants to help migrant children who don't speak English when they arrive. She said: "These children aren't learning the skills they need. They are becoming isolated and introverted.

"A lot end up talking among themselves in Polish, which is no good to anyone. A lot of them are trying to talk their parents in to going home."

Mary Scanlon, a Highlands MSP, said the problem was particularly serious in the region.

Scotland's biggest teaching union said Highland Council has only one full-time qualified bilingual teacher and two part-timers to cater for 400 migrant children.

Andrew Stewart, of the EIS, said: "It is a case of underfunding. It is putting a lot of pressure on teachers, because these bright kids are only picking up English from their classmates, rather than being taught formally. It helps nobody when there are children in the classroom that do not understand what is being said."