Government U-turn: DfE don’t want pupil nationality data now they can’t hand it to the Home Office

[noblegiraffe]

After a successful campaign by human rights charities, teachers and parents, schools will no longer be required to collect pupil nationality and country of birth data.

The DfE claimed it was to help provide education services for the children of immigrants, but leaked documents showed that it was at the request of the Home Office who wanted the data to create a hostile environment for illegal immigrants and to deprioritise their children for school places.

They were forced to say that this data would not be handed to the Home Office, and since there is now no point in collecting it, the DfE will be writing to schools to say it is no longer required.

Well done to all involved.

schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-ends-divisive-pupil-nationality-data-collection/

[lljkk]

(I know, I'm naive)

[noblegiraffe]

Oh me too, lljkk. I bloody defended the policy on here when it first came out. Some posters were saying ‘this sounds well dodgy and is obviously going to be used to discriminate’ and I was all ‘National pupil database data is really useful, lots of interesting research could be done with this’.

Then the leaks happened which made it clear it was dodgy. To name names, it was Theresa May at the Home Office who wanted it (in fact she wanted schools to check passports) and Nicky Morgan put up a good fight so it was watered down to just nationality data.

[titchy]

I too thought (still do!) that it would have been a rich valuable and very useful data source.

[BubblesBuddy]

I may be a very odd person, and insufficiently PC, but why should illegal immigrants take school places from those who have a right to be here? I have no problems with people seeking asylum here, but illegal is different and such people dilute the resources for everyone else. Is that right? I think a lot of people would rather illegal immigrants were not here. I do repeat that I do not count bone fide asylum seekers in this.

[noblegiraffe]

Well, denying children an education because of the actions of their parents isn’t something schools should be in the business of. We are educators, not border control.

In addition, the threat of deportation discouraging illegal immigrants from sending their children to school and getting a good education puts them at greater risk of extremism and radicalisation.

We are talking about children here. They have the right to an education.

[titchy]

but why should illegal immigrants take school places from those who have a right to be here

I'm not aware there are huge number of illegal children in our schools are there? Most illegals are young men.

Even if there were, a) children shouldn't be made to pay the price of their parents' irresponsibility/ desperation, and b) every child who wants a school place gets one, so no places are being taken away from anyone.

[Peregrina]

If they had been really concerned about the education of the children they would have been asking different questions e.g. is English a 2nd/3rd language in the home? Straight off I can think of two people born in Africa, who are immigrants, and didn't have UK passports but both were from English speaking families, so wouldn't have needed language support.

[pointythings]

Bubbles the UK has signed up to the united nations convention of the rights of the child which is a legally binding international piece of legislation. Under it, every child has a right to an education, no matter who they are or where they are.

So the UK must provide every child with an education irrespective of their parents' immigration status. Simple as that.

I was one of those who refused to provide nationality data on my DDs - as an EU immigrant, I felt that it was a dodgy move. Fortunately our school made it clear that it was not compulsory for me to answer, only for them to ask. I take no pleasure in having been right.

[alltheworld]

I always declined to give the info. Had to submit bc to la for schools application. That was enough.

[LooseAtTheSeams]

I refused as well - although it was slightly pointless in the sense that I then handed over DS2's passport for a school trip!
I'm glad this has been dropped.

[Theworldisfullofidiots]

I've always refused to give it and I was v unhappy about the primary where I am chair of govs doing it. We made it clear to parents they could opt out.

[noblegiraffe]

Oh the data would have been really interesting, titchy and could have been used for good instead of evil, but given how many parents refused to provide it (and rightly so) once the evil intentions had been revealed, it would have been useless because it would have been so incomplete.

[Peregrina]

I don't particularly see why Nationality and passport details are useful - the language of the home, and how long a person has lived in the UK, to gauge how accustomed they are to the ways of this country, could have been.

[noblegiraffe]

I think teachers were also supposed to rate their proficiency in English.

[noblegiraffe]

Profiency of EAL students with English, that is, not all students.