The proposal to cut free ESOL, English lessons provided in colleges and by charities across the country, is a direct attack on the future of asylum seekers and refugees in Britain.
ESOL will no longer be free for those who need it, but only for ‘priority groups’ – those unemployed and those on income support. The majority of those on low wages will have to pay at least 50% for lessons – many of whom will not be able to afford this alongside basic living expenses. Asylum seekers will be some of the hardest hit; they will have to pay at least 50% of the cost, and yet aren’t allowed to work or claim Jobseeker’s Allowance whilst waiting for a decision. The voucher support many receive cannot be exchanged for lessons, meaning access to lessons is impossible. The only hope for those who can’t afford is to try and get a space with a charity, but with lessons already heavily subscribed, the provision for all simply won’t be possible.
According to the Association of Colleges findings so far, 100,000 people will be affected, out of 195,000 currently supported. The majority of those affected will be women, isolated and caring for children, or searching for work. This is where the true severity of the cuts shows itself – even if a mother manages, somehow, to find ESOL support, the crèche or centre where her children can stay whilst she learns will also be cut, and so she cannot attend the lessons because she has to care for her child. The cuts form a savage spiral, relentlessly limiting opportunity. As the Institute of Race Relations reported, “it is expected that the £4.5 million ESOL Learner Support Fund (LSF), which helps some students, including women without independent means and low-waged workers, with course fees, will not be allocated in 2011. These specific changes are on top of the sector-wide funding cuts which also affect ESOL provision.”
English lessons are crucial for people searching for work, and for applying for citizenship, but without the lessons people have little chance of support. Despite implementing the cuts which isolate people, David Cameron has recently made a speech attacking people who ‘segregate’ themselves:
“We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values.”
The government is not ‘tolerating’ this segregation, but causing it. The ‘values’ he holds dear seem to be clear enough to the majority: limiting education, childcare and healthcare at every opportunity.
In the same speech, applauded by the English Defence League, Cameron calls on people to speak English, aiming to make “sure that immigrants speak the language of their new home and ensuring that people are educated in the elements of a common culture and curriculum”. Calling on people to speak English and be educated whilst cutting English lessons is an outright racist attack, with Cameron eager to make it immigrants’ responsibility to learn whilst not providing the very lessons necessary. His repeated suggestion that segregation is a choice allows him to ignore the real problems facing people: destitution, poverty, and limited housing provision, which are the real causes of segregation and isolation – something the lack of English lessons will only increase. The spending review proposed ESOL reductions for people who are not in ‘settled communities’, despite not explaining what a ‘settled community’ was – again, Cameron criminalises certain groups of society, isolates them further by cutting their funding, and uses racist policy-making to continue to divide society into desirable and less desirable sections.
ESOL cuts will not just affect asylum seekers and refugees, but also the people who teach – job losses have already been reported, and more are planned. The ESOL cuts form part of a wider attack on education for everybody, and must be seen as part of the wider fight against the cuts. By fighting the cuts to ESOL we can expose how deeply racism is entrenched in the system, and we can remain united in our fight against the cuts that will affect everybody. Together we are stronger – together we can win!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is part of local North East campaign “Tyneside Community Action Against Racism” (TCAR) who are planning an active and large campaign, opposing racism and the cuts; please get in touch if you have more information, or would like to be involved [email protected] or Facebook Tyneside Community Action Against Racism. Any action will be organised collectively because together we are stronger – together we can win!
