40 racist incidents recorded in schools
More than 40 racist incidents have been recorded in South Ayrshire schools over the past three years.
Most of the cases - 20- took place in the academic year 2017 to 2018. The next year from 2018 to 2019 - there were 17 instances of racism. Only four happened during the last school year.
Across Scotland more than 2200 incidents occurred over those three years, according to figures from a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
A council spokesman said: “It is obvious looking at the figures that the variability across the country is more to do with methods of recording than actual incidents. South Ayrshire takes recording of racist incidents as seriously as we take tackling racism. We can’t deal with it if we don’t record it and any incident of racism is one too many.
“All of our schools run the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools programme ensuring that children and young people are taught to treat each other with respect. Antiracism lessons are part of the curriculum and many of our schools also work with Show Racism the Red Card.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Beatrice Wishart, the party’s education spokeswoman, said: “No one should go to school afraid that they will face racist abuse but these figures show that racist incidents remain a stubborn stain on Scottish schooling.
“All forms of bullying need to be challenged effectively. That means accurate recording and monitoring of bullying so that the right interventions can be put in place to stamp these incidents out. The Black Lives Matter movement has encouraged us all to think about racial injustice and to reflect on Scotland’s own history. By and large Scotland is a great place to live but learning the lessons of the past will allow us to do even better in the future.”
She called on the Scottish Government to consider how it can tackle racist incidents in schools.