The overwhelming funding focus on deprivation and its links to achievement, and in particular the plans for mainstreaming and extending the remit of the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant is unhelpful. Whilst there are commonalities in the educational experiences of all pupils we are concerned that this focus will lead to the neglect of other issues impacting on the school experience of bilingual and minoritized students and a neglect of other, equally valid and important, educational needs and entitlements
Mainstreaming EMA funding and removing ring fencing would leave spending decisions vulnerable to local and national political and societal pressures. There is significant hostility to school and education spending related to migrant and/or minoritized groups and equality issues more generally. The removal of ring fencing would therefore leave provision for these groups exceptionally vulnerable and is likely to result in a negative impact on equality and to significantly disadvantage ethnic minority and bilingual learners.
As the consultation notes, the EMA grant has been ‘an important grant in helping to narrow achievement gaps for Black and Minority Ethnic groups and in supporting the needs of pupils for whom English is an Additional Language’. We believe that to secure and extend this success it is essential that funding streams related this work are retained as specific and ring fenced grants and not, as proposed, mainstreamed within the DSG.
It is essential that the nature of globalisation is recognised in any revised funding regime. Funding regimes and provision need to be flexible enough to respond to the needs and rights of short term sojourners as well as long term bilingual residents. There is consistent evidence from across the country that local authority central services are an essential component in providing for such needs but the existence of such services is threatened by the proposals.
It is also widely acknowledged across the education sector that current EMA funding is inadequate to meet the needs of all learners and has not kept pace with the numbers of bilingual and ethnic minority learners over many years. It is clear that many schools are not yet fully able to cope with the initially high costs of providing well for pupils who arrive during the school year at early stages of learning English as an additional language. However the current proposals make no reference to these often unmet needs.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ research indicates that continued and increased ring fenced funding to support EAL needs which combine locally devolved funding along with centrally held accessible local budgets and resources has the support of schools. Given this support, it is unclear why the consultation proposes mainstreaming the existing grant.
Identifying groups who are disadvantaged by ethnicity and socio-economic status as a proxy indicator for Cognition and Learning needs is an unhelpful and deficit model. This association between underperforming groups and cognition and learning difficulties will do nothing to address low expectations of some groups of pupils such as Gypsy, Roma, Travellers, Black pupils nor economically disadvantaged pupils.
Funding to address the educational disadvantage faced by Black and ethnic minority pupils and by pupils suffering from socio-economic disadvantage should be recognised by a discrete and substantially increased Equalities grant.
We welcome the fact that funding to support the entitlement of bilingual learners to develop their English language competence is recognised as distinct from funding related to underachievement. However we believe that EAL funding is best allocated through a ring-fenced and discrete grant with a commitment to long-term sustainability based on an entitlement to support and on indicators of English language fluency.
Research disseminated nationally has consistently identified that the stage of English language fluency has a clear and direct bearing on pupil achievement. Given the increasing globalisation in our schools, and the changing nature of migration from long term settlement to both long and short term residency we would urge the DCSF to look afresh at the issue of a national measure of English language fluency.
A number of curriculum documents are now referring to the importance of children and young people having access to opportunities to use their first languages to enhance their learning and well-being in schools but this is not reflected in the funding proposals. We are disturbed that the formula does not include an additional educational need related to mobility. Disproportionate levels of mobility are noted within certain groups of ethnic minority learners including Gypsy, Roma and Irish Travellers as well as bilingual learners, particularly those who are recent migrants or who are from refugee or asylum seeking families. Failure to recognise mobility as a causal factor in achievement and a cost to schools will be disadvantageous to these learners and to those schools for whom mobility is a significant issue.
In the longer term what is required to fairly fund schools is a nationally coherent and systematic approach to EAL learners’ needs. The Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant should be retained and increased as a discrete grant for an interim period whilst a more appropriate mechanism is developed. In the interim, local authorities should, as now, be able to retain a percentage of the grant.
