Colleges face migrant English lesson funding scraps
Friday, 4 January 2008 12:00 AM
The government will focus its English-language funding on areas where improvements in "community cohesion" are required most, it has announced.
Ministers were forced to halt free English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes last year after a sharp upturn in demand placed strain on college intakes. In London mayor Ken Livingstone was forced to allocate £15 million to make up the shortfall as a result.
Now the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is proposing prioritising future funding on areas which need the biggest improvements in integration.
Councils will be required to justify their requests for ESOL funding while businesses and the voluntary sector are also being asked to fill the gap where appropriate.
Skills secretary John Denham said good English language skills have a "vital role to play" in encouraging "community cohesion and integration".
"We must ensure that the priority is to reach long-term residents for whom poor English is a real barrier to integration in work or in the community," he said.
Some have questioned the government's commitment to providing translated materials after it announced last month it would seek to limit the provision of translations of official documents.
The move received criticism but was defended as a "commonsense approach" to the problem as a bid to encourage new immigrants to learn English by the government today.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne said: "It is vital that those we welcome into the UK to work and settle here play by the rules, learn English and use our language.
"People who want to come to the UK permanently, or as highly skilled workers are required to speak English. Now we want to go further and insist that anyone coming to Britain to work speaks English."
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