Cost of teaching English to immigrants exceeds €126m
Non-national students should be segregated until they can speak English as the current €126m annual spend on support teachers isn't working, according to the Opposition.
Assistance to foreign national children who don't speak English in our schools has cost the Irish taxpayer almost €300m in the past three years alone, new figures obtained by the Sunday Independent reveal.
However, despite the massive spend, most of the 28,000 foreign national pupils at primary and post primary level are only receiving about an hour of focused English lessons a week, and Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes is calling for these pupils to be segregated until they can understand their lessons.
The Department of Education is spending €126m this year on the provision of English support for these children.
Some 426 schools this year received support payments for special teachers, but pupils are still not receiving more than one or two hours of English lessons every week.
Since 2005, the Government has spent €269m and that could hit more than €300m before the end of the year. The startling spending figures were obtained by Deputy Hayes in a parliamentary question to Batt O'Keefe's predecessor as education minister, Mary Hanafin.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Mr Hayes said: "We have to look at making sure these international kids are getting what they need. One or two hours of intensive English a week is nowhere near enough.
"They need intensive English teaching before they should be introduced to the mainstream.
"Spending almost €10,000 a year on each of these -- and still many of them are arriving in post-primary level with very limited English -- is not acceptable.
"The new minister must now look at the system and ensure these children can speak English before entering the main stream," he said.
- DANIEL McCONNELL
