Schools bosses accused of failing in diversity role
ETHNIC minority families have accused Glasgow City Council of failing the city’s diverse pupils.
Two petitions have been set up calling on education bosses to protect the teaching of Urdu in city schools and ensure pupils have role models from minority communities.
Organisers claim the city has made strides in other areas but is lagging behind with no Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) head teachers.
Hundreds of families from the Pakistani and Kashmiri communities have now signed the call to chief executive Ann Marie O’Donnell.
The first petition, organised by dad Waheed Shad, reads: “There is a growing disquiet among Glasgow’s diverse children and families due to the general lack of visible staff and, in particular, promoted posts in Glasgow schools and as head and deputy head teachers.
“Apart from the lack of Black and Ethnic Minorities, there needs to be a clear policy on equality issues including racist incidents in schools and tracking of incidents.”
A second petition asking the council to protect Urdu in Glasgow schools has been organised by Khadija Mohammed, chairwoman of Scottish Association of Minority Ethnic Educators (SAMEE), and Nighet Riaz, of the School of Education at the Universit y of the West of Scotland.
Urdu has been taught in Glasgow classrooms as a modern language for the past 30 years.
But a lack of qualified teachers has made organising a sufficient number of classes difficult.
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: “Maureen McKenna has offered to meet the person who submitted the petition to discuss the issues that have been raised.
“Like all other councils in Scot- land, the council is currently finding it difficult to recruit teachers in a range of subjects.
“However, that does not mean we are not committed to making those subjects, including Urdu, available to pupils.”
Soryia Siddique, Labour spokeswoman for schools and further education, said: “Glasgow is a welcoming city and increasing in diversity.
“It is reasonable to request the classrooms and staffing in Glasgow schools to be reflective of the make up of the city and Urdu to be considered a modern language.”
The council spokeswoman added: “The Scottish Government has recently established a short term working group on diversity in the teaching profession, chaired by Professor Rowena Arshad of the Moray House school of Education and our Executive Director of education is a member of that group.
“The aim of the group is to contribute towards an improvement in the ethnic diversity of teachers in Scotland and Glasgow.”