Immigrant children lack language support

Immigrant children are not given adequate Faroese tuition at school, and this makes it difficult for them to integrate into society.

So says Jacob Eli S. Olsen, chairman of the Teachers’ Association.

“We simply do not have the resources to provide adequate Faroese language teaching to an ever-increasing number of pupils with a non-Faroese background.”

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He adds that schools can no longer afford to fund ‘Faroese as a second language’ classes from the overall school budget due to the increasing number of immigrant pupils.

For the current school year, Faroese schools requested extra funding for 327 children who require ‘Faroese as a second language’ classes. Ten years ago, this figure was about 100.

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“We have long been calling for a separate budget line for ‘Faroese as a second language’ classes in schools,” he explains.

“This would give us a much clearer indication of the funds we have available for this purpose, and it would make it a lot easier to organise language classes for our immigrant pupils.”

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

English version by prosa.fo.

More Faroese News in English.