London school students taught in "ethnic ghettos"

A leading public school headteacher has been criticised for suggesting schools in London are sleepwalking into segregation and compared it to apartheid in South Africa.

David Levin, vice-chair of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) said he was alarmed at how the capital was divided into ethnic ghettoes.

Levin is a headteacher at City of London school for boys, which collaborated with Stepney Green school in east London, where students from his school held private tutoring sessions in a range of subjects.

Around 97 per cent of pupils at Stepney Green are of Bangladeshi heritage while some schools in south London had an "overwhelmingly" high proportion of students of west African descent.

Levin, who was speaking at the annual conference for HMC, an association of 250 public schools and leading private schools, said the lack of diversity at inner-city schools in London was dangerous.

Levin said,

"A number of those children, through no fault of their own, haven't been outside their council estate, let alone outside Tower Hamlets. This cannot be a good thing."

He added,

"They aren't mixing with people from different faiths and backgrounds. I have lived pre- and post-apartheid and one of the things I have learnt is that your imagination is stronger than the reality. If you know people who are different to you, you don't fear them."

Most will agree with Levin that students need to mix with people from different backgrounds, his suggestion that there is apartheid in some parts of London is dangerous speak which hasn't been received too kindly.

A spokesman for Tower Hamlets Borough Council, where Stepney Green school is based, said,

"We do not judge our pupils' success on the basis of whether they attend schools with pupils who happen to be of the same ethnicity, but on the quality of education they receive and their progression in educational attainment, with internationalism promoted as a core principle in the learning environment. The east London community is very proud of the fact that it has many people from a diverse range of backgrounds living, working and learning together, a community that celebrates and champions its diversity as not only an inspiration but a source of strength and cohesion."

Even Mayor of London Boris Johnson has shot down Levin's claims, with a spokesman saying,

"Apartheid was a grotesque system imposed by law and backed by force, excluding millions from the most basic rights. London is the home of parliamentary democracy. Every citizen is protected under the law. We champion diversity and actively seek to address deprivation and under-achievement wherever we find it. Every community has their failures and every one has their great success stories. This Mayor will always seek to unite Londoners and focus on what diverse communities have in common, not what divides them."

To compare the state of some inner-city schools to apartheid isn’t helpful as it puts a label on pupils who may have the desire to succeed and progress.

And many who do come from a similar background have gone to have successful careers where they have had no problems with interacting with those from diverse backgrounds.

Picture: Students at a school in Tower Hamlets