Highland Council seeks to increase support for speakers of other languages

22nd May 2008

The Highland Council is to strengthen its commitment to welcome migrants and their families settling into Highland communities by increasing English language tuition to assist their integration.

Members of the Council's Education, Culture and Sport Committee on 22nd May 2008 agreed that the Council would apply for future European funding. The application will be made through a community planning partnership. If successful, the funding will continue the service provided by the Community-based Language Assistants from 2009 and support the English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision managed through the Highland Adult Literacies Partnership.

The remit of Community Language Assistants is to assist with the settling-in process of new inward migrants - particularly families - who are at the early stages of learning the English language and may be unaware of how to access local services.

Adult Basic Education (ABE) offers English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners the opportunity to improve their functional literacy in English including: reading, writing, listening, speaking and numeracy. In recent years the number of ESOL learners coming forward in all areas of the Highlands has increased dramatically. In 2007, ABE work with 977 learners, 570 of whom were ESOL learners.

Councillor Bill Fernie, Chairman of The Highland Council's Education, Culture and Sport Committee said: "With the quite large numbers of inward migrants now residing in the area, it is essential that the Council does what it can to support their integration into school, work and community life. Helping with their language needs is obviously very important."