Anti-racism training in Wales to boost ethnically diverse teachers

Teachers are being given anti-racism training in Wales as pupils have spoken of their experiences of racist bullying and feeling isolated in schools as Wales becomes the first UK nation to make the history of Britain's colonial past mandatory in school lessons.

Ethnic minority groups are vastly unrepresented amongst the Welsh teaching population - with just 110 identifying as black or Asian, compared to 25,915 identifying as white. The Welsh Assembly has admitted more need to be done to attract an ethnically diverse range of teachers.

There have been incidents of racist bullying in Welsh schools hitting the headlines over the past few years, and many non-white pupils have reported feeling very isolated within their school communities, often citing a lack of education around race as the problem, rather than racist comments being made out of spite.

New resources are now available to teachers called 'diversity and anti-racist professional learning', and following the biggest reform to Welsh education in decades, Black, Asian and minority ethnic histories and experiences are now a mandatory part of the new curriculum for Wales, which will broaden pupils' understanding and knowledge of the diverse cultures which have built their past and present.

This is a really interesting article that reflects on issues around institutional racism within schools, along with the presentation of an ethno-centric curriculum which impacts academic attainment of minority ethnic groups, and talks about how we should have started decolonising the curriculum a very long time ago.

Read the full article here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...