Statistics
Sir: Mr Mark Bonham Carter's letter (January 24) in reply to my article on the immigration problem is disingenuous in the extreme. I said that he and his organisation opposed the Department of Education and Science in its desire to collect statistics on the n!-1111ber of coloured children in British schools, with a view to helping teachers and education authorities to grapple with the problem of race relations in Britain. He says that he (and his colleagues) never opposed the collection of such statistics, but admits that they Were against DES proposals for changing the system Of collection because "it made matters worse" — what. matters it made worse is not clear.
The detailed facts are these. For some time before the controversy arose the DES (and local education authorities) made a habit of collecting figures Showing the number of immigrant children in British schools — that is, the number of children born abroad — though not even all of those. By 1971 it was Perfectly clear that those figures alone did not give a complete account of the statistical problem of race relations in education. The DES, with the encourageMent of the then Secretary of State, Mrs Thatcher, Proposed to record, not only the number of children in British schools who were born abroad, but also the number of children in British schools who, though born in this country, were different in colour,
background and culture from the children of the host (white) population. Only thus, it was argued — I believe correctly — could a true picture of the Problems faced by the British educational system be acquired. To this Mr Bonham Carter, and many of like Mind, was unalterably opposed. In 1972, indeed, Mrs Thatcher wrote to Mr Enoch Powell to say that she had, in spite of her own wishes, found it impossible to Change the system of statistical recording. When Mr Bonham Carter says that he does not and did not find it desirable to make that change he is saying — as I Pointed out in my article — that he wanted and wants to keep the truth from the public.
Patrick Cosgrove 56 Doughty Street, London WC 1
Previous page
