Ellee Seymour

So how can we teach our migrant children which turn up on our doorstep? What thought did Tony Blair give to this when he opened our doors to their families?

Just to let you know what is happening in Fenland, my home patch, where a secondary school has resorted to using a caretaker’s house to cope with the demands of teaching English to children from migrant families.

The property became vacant when a new caretaker was taken on who lives nearby and the upstairs is being used as a classroom while the ground floor is used for one-to-one coaching.

More than 100 pupils speaking about 17 different languages have joined the school in the past two years, for which it has so far received no extra funding. Nevertheless, the headteacher has employed a teacher and two specialised teaching assistants, which is costing about £50,000 a year in wages alone. He admits to feeling let down by the lack of support from government and said:

“We have got to provide for these young people who have very different needs. Of course they are welcome to this town and the school, but there isn’t any extra educational funding being provided for these youngsters.

“Some of the children that now speak English also need extra coaching to achieve higher grades.”

“Many need higher level coaching, which means we need a whole range of different help. The problem is massive.”

These pupils will also have to meet our educational targets, it’s such a nightmare for our dedicated teachers and I really sympathise. I wish the school heads luck who are applying for extra resources.

In a fair democracy, you wouldn’t have to ask, this situation was totally avoidable by having foresight and planning ahead.

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Can you imagine the excitement of these young Nigerian school children who have been given a $100 laptop each as part of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme in Africa. Some of them don’t even have a television at home.

Their local community built their school, now well worn, from plaster, wood and tin. It educates 150 students and three classes are crammed into the two-room building.

The 10 and 11-year-old students are lucky to share three books per academic subject, as well as having a clock, bell, wall calendar, and science equipment consisting of a lever. Students in less fortunate schools might share three books in total.

But Nigeria’s Education Minister Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku has questioned whether it was appropriate to provide laptops "when they don’t have seats to sit down and learn; when they don’t have uniforms to go to school in, where they don’t have facilities."

Walter Bender, President of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said their politicians were unwilling to commit because "change equals risk". He said, there needed to be a "dramatic change" because education in many countries was "failing" children.

The computers have been specially designed for use in remote and harsh environments where there is little access to electricity or the internet. There have been "aggressive" attempts to undermine the charity, which planned to sell the laptops to governments in lots of one million for $100 apiece. But it appears they are not buying in as hoped, with reports that a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science has designed a laptop that can be produced for $47 and sold at small volumes.

The fact is that the internet is going to open up these children’s eyes to a totally new world, is this something the Nigerian government is prepared for too? I can see why it seems incongrous to provide new technology while school kids are deprived of the basics? Isn’t that worth it for access to new knowledge?

I do urge you to watch this wonderful video link recording the school – 63 excited pupils in the class – with their laptops, which is described as "a souvenir from God". Is it really a gift from the Gods? Or do you just get what you pay for? Can it be so good when it costs so little?

The kids certainly enjoy the games. And what child doesn’t?

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