Governmentplan for educating asylum seeker children is morally unacceptable NUT
Speaking at a press conference* heldjointly with the Transport and General Workers General Secretary Bill Morris,today (Friday 4 October 2002) John Bangs, head of the NUTs Education and EqualOpportunities Department said:
The Government is failing to recognisethe cost its plans to educate asylum seeker children in detention centers willinvolve. The plan is ethically unacceptable and economic nonsense.
A crisis has been created where noproblem exists. The question of where these children are educated could havebeen solved by the application of common sense rather than a morallyobjectionable solution.
EN D PR75/02
*The press conference was to launch theT&Gs report Asylum City just ahead of the report stage of the Nationality,Asylum and Immigration Bill in the House of Lords next week.
The Government is proposing that asylumseeker children should be educated at detention centres for asylum seekersrather than in local schools for the first six months of their time in thiscountry.