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Dutch-Somali Asylum Seekers Join UK Schools
By Philip Johnston and Liz Lightfoot
London, October 22, 2003 (The Telegraph, UK) – Hundreds of refugees granted asylum in other European Union countries are coming to Britain and enrolling their children in schools.
A report published by Ofsted yesterday described how one primary school had taken in 300 pupils in two years from families who had been granted asylum status in another EU country.
There have been reports that large numbers of Somalis given asylum in Holland have been settling in Britain under the EU right to move freely between member sates.
The Ofsted report cites the case of a primary school near a Midlands city centre where 61 of 491 pupils were children of "EU habitual residents", mostly Somali speakers from the Netherlands or Sweden.
Schools receive a grant of £500 for every child of British-based asylum seekers they admit. But this does not apply to those from outside Britain, leaving the schools concerned in financial difficulties.
David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said it was "an outrage" that schools were missing out on the money.
"It is a scandal which needs to be dealt with," he said. "The children have the same need of support whether they come in direct or through another country."
Ofsted was unable to identify the schools involved, though they are thought to be in the Leicester area, where many Somalis from Holland have settled. Since the 2001 census, more than 500 Dutch Somali asylum-seeker pupils have joined the town's school register.
The report coincided with new research from the Home Office suggesting that many asylum seekers claiming to be from Somalia are from other African countries.
Expert language analysts found that among a small sample of asylum seekers from a range of countries, nearly one in 10 was not telling the truth. In the case of those claiming to be from Somalia, the figure was 21 per cent.
The Government's policy of clamping down on illegal working also came under renewed scrutiny yesterday.
The Commons home affairs committee was told that only one of 63 illegal Chinese workers who were discovered during a series of raids by police and immigration officials during the summer has been removed from the country.
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