NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 9, 2007: Imagine a scenario where people have never seen a Hindu or a Muslim. There are places in the UK where children have never seen a person from either race. The growing disparity in community relations has the UK government so worried that it is now urging schools in the country to forge links with schools that have a racial mix in their classes. The government’s novel effort at creating harmony between communities will send schools with mostly white pupils scampering to find schools that have more Asians and Africans in an effort to up inter-community relations. While teachers have been ordered to arrange “trips” to schools with a healthy racial mix, there is another plan to try and forge pen pal relations–via e-mail–between children from different races.
According to available statistics, only two percent of high schools and five percent of primary schools in England have no pupils from ethnic minority groups. However, the number is enough to prompt the government into action as it has been seen that in areas where ethnic minority are about the eight percent national average, partial segregation along race and faith lines are entrenched. “I talked to a class of 15-year-olds about faith, they had never met anyone of the Muslim faith or a Hindu,” Jim Knight, the Schools Minster, was quoted as saying. “As part of delivering the duty, we could encourage more of that sort of contact. You could do it online,” he told the National Association of Head Teachers. The process will start from the next academic year in September.