By Paul Rowe

The Department of Education and Science recently issued a circular reducing services for ethnic minority children who need additional support to learn English.

The measure aims to remove more than 550 teachers and save €33m. It is immoral and short-sighted. It will lead to additional costs to the Irish State in the future and is not a sensible cost-cutting measure.

At present, a school can apply to employ an EAL teacher (English as an Additional Language) when it has 14 children with language needs. More teachers can be employed to a maximum of six posts per school if there are more than 120 eligible.

The new circular radically reduces this level of service. Starting from this September, there will be a graded reduction, with complicated methods of double and triple counting of eligible children.

Schools with low levels of need will see little change, but schools with great needs will see a huge reduction in levels of service with teams of three EAL teachers being required to do the work of six.

EAL teaching is essential for the integration of children from immigrant families into the school system and into Irish society. Without cultural mediation and linguistic support, children who are otherwise bright and able will fall behind and become socially and educationally isolated.

They will inevitably require increasingly expensive interventions throughout their school life. The cost of these will dwarf any savings made by this measure.

The annual temporary contracts of EAL teachers appear to be the administrative reason for singling out this group of children. No teachers will actually be sacked - their contracts will just not be renewed.

It is an example of a measure selected for administrative ease but it will raise fundamental moral and legal issues. The vast majority of the children involved are Irish citizens, whose educational services appear to have been selected for reduction on ethnic grounds.

It may well prove that such discrimination is unlawful. It is certainly morally indefensible to select children in this way.

International experience shows that language intervention for young children is highly efficient. Young children absorb language quickly. Once they do so, they can soon manage the educational content of the school and perform to the same levels as indigenous children.

We understand that the economy must be rebuilt around sustainable, innovative, native industry with a great emphasis on 'knowledge and thinking' technologies. The large numbers of ethnic minority children in our primary schools have the ability to play a major part in this new future.

Children who naturally converse in many languages will - if we ensure their full participation in our education system - emerge as confident, educated, multi-lingual Irish men and women able to do business, negotiate and communicate with people in many countries.

There are serious dangers in cutting back on EAL. If a whole segment of our children and their families perceive our Government is discriminating against them, allowing them to fall behind in the education system and treating them with the disdain that is inherent in this decision, then those children and their families may become alienated from the mainstream of our public life.

Significant social and economic costs have accumulated in other European countries that did not act to prevent such trends.

The measure also contradicts current government policy on integration which identifies the acquisition of English language skills as a key step to prevent such alienation.

This measure appears to be yet another example of a Government slashing at an easy target with reckless disregard for the consequential cost to the State in future years. We must work to reverse it as soon as possible.

Paul Rowe, chief executive of Educate Together

(First published in The Irish Independent, 13 April 2009)