Only 4 out 400 students have English as mother- tongue in British primary school

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London, August 5: In what can be regarded as an extreme case, only four out of 400 pupil have English as their mother tongue at the Bradford Moor Community Primary School in Britain.

It has emerged that less than one per cent of pupils at the school speak English as their first language.

The school is located in the city’s most deprived areas, and 90 per cent of the 417 pupils belong to Pakistan.

A leading think-tank has described this case as a worrying sign because it shows that cities are becoming ‘racially segregated’ and leading ‘parallel lives’.

Yorkshire Member of Parliament for Shipley Philip Davies said allowing childrento begin schooling, who barely knew their adopted home language was ‘totally unacceptable’

“Primary schools have got to presume that children can at least communicate in some form. Teachers are having to start with one hand tied behind their backs. For me it is one of the key factors as to why Bradford so under-performs nationally on education”, the Daily Mail quoted Davies, as saying.

Official figures showed that nearly 17 per cent of pupils in state-funded primary schools did not speak English as a first language last year.

Dr David Green of think-tank Civitas said the language barrier was creating ‘dangerous divisions’ in British society.

“Children cannot even start to get an education if they do not even speak the same language as the teacher. It is also not fair on the 1 per cent of children who do speak English because their lessons will be compromised”, he said.

The school holds several ‘booster’ classes every week to help pupils improve their English and is believed to have teaching assistants to help students with their language skills. (ANI)