BILINGUAL CHILDREN

It has long been received wisdom that nothing can be done about schools in Danish inner cities that have a high proportion of bilingual children. These schools are often (mistakenly) called ghetto schools, since the non-Danish language is usually one spoken by refugees, such as Somali, Pushtu or Arabic. Such schools become more and more concentrated, as alarmed Danish parents move their children away to schools which are more ethnically pure, or to free schools. As a reaction, politicians are forced to spread the ethnic children around the city, so that they do not all congregate in one place.

Like much received wisdom, this has now been shown to be tosh. Copenhagen has nine schools that are considered to have too high a proportion of bilingual children. In eight of them, that proportion has fallen drastically (97% to 64%, 80% to 40% etc), of itself, and over a relatively short period of time (3 years). It seems that parents of Danish children are quite happy to have their children play with those who may have a different background and culture.

Yet another example of politicians talking a lot and saying nothing.

Walter Blotscher