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CERES: Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland

THE DUTY TO PROMOTE RACE EQUALITY

A SUMMARY OF THE CRE GUIDE FOR EDUCATION AUTHORITIES AND SCHOOLS IN SCOTLAND

NOTE: This guidance was produced by the CRE in 2000. The functions of the CRE have been taken over by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, however this guidance has not yet been updated since it was originally published.

Section 1 Introduction

Section 2 The General Duty

• What is the general duty?
• What does the general duty mean in practice?
• What are the benefits of the general duty?
• What is the relationship between the general and the specific duties?

Section 3 The Specific Duty - a Race Equality Policy

• Prepare a Race Equality Policy
• What is a race equality policy?
• Does the race equality policy have to be a separate policy?
• What should the race equality policy cover?
• How should you put the policy into practice?
• When should you assess your policies?
• How should you assess your policies?

Section 4 Monitoring

• Ethnic Monitoring -ten questions
• What information should you use to answer these questions?
• What should you do with the results of assessments?
• How can you take account of everyone's views and needs?
• What should you monitor?
• How should you use the monitoring data?
• Publishing the results of monitoring

 

Section 5 Education authority support to schools

• Education authorities and the duty to promote race equality
• Examples of the type of support schools can expects from their education authority Reviewing functions
• Workshops on race equality policies
• Advising schools on monitoring and assessing policies
• Training and support for school board members
• Helping schools to develop good practice
• Resources for schools
• Reaching parents and guardians, and communities

 

Section 6 Support available from the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES)

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Section 1 Introduction

The Race Relations Act 1976 as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (referred to 'the Act') came into force on 2 April 2001( the General Duty) and the specific duties came into force on 13 March 2002. Authorities must have their Race Equality Scheme or Policy in place and published by 30 November 2002. The General Duty is set out in section 71(1) of the Race Relations Act and the specific duties are set out in the Race Relations Act 1976 (Statutory Duties)(Scotland) Order 2002. The Act gives public authorities a statutory general duty to promote race equality. The Code of Practice on the Duty to Promote Race Equality in Scotland was issued in November 2002, along with the (non-statutory) Guide for Education authorities and Schools in Scotland.

You should be fully aware of the code's guidelines as they have legal standing.

This should be a valuable aid because it is based on tried-and-tested experience in education authorities and schools that have been working towards race equality

The General and Specific duties are placed on education authorities, managers of grant-aided schools. While there are clear implications for schools in Scotland, the legal duty falls to the education authority

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Section 2 The General Duty

What is the general duty?

The general duty, says you must have 'due regard to the need':

1. to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination
2. to promote equality of opportunity and
3. to promote good relations between persons of different racial groups

The general duty is obligatoryfor everyone and it must be applied to all functions that are 'relevant' to race equality. While some purely technical functions, such as maintaining computers, may not be relevant, race equality will always be relevant when delivering services, and in employment.

The three parts of the duty ­ eliminating unlawful racial discrimination, promoting equal opportunities, and promoting good relations between people from different racial groups ­ complement each other. You should try to find ways of meeting them all.

For example, if your school takes racial bullying and harassment seriously and ensures excellent reporting mechanisms but does nothing to promote good relations between people from different racial groups in your school community, then you will only have part fulfilled the requirements of the general duty.

Similarly, if your school is sensitive to multicultural and diverse linguistic and faith requirements of pupils but does not examine institutional practice in areas like recruitment and selection or staff development, you will only have part fulfilled the requirements of the general duty.

All three strands must be complied with. The aim of the general duty is to ensure that race equality is mainstreamed into all aspects authority and school life and services offered. This can be achieved by ensuring account is taken of race equality in development planning, policy making, learning and teaching, quality assurance, employment practice etc.

The weight given to a function should be in proportion to its relevance to race equality. The duty will be particularly relevant to functions such as admission, assessment, raising pupils' attainment levels, delivering the curriculum, discipline (including exclusion), guidance and support, and recruitment and professional development of staff.

One of the first steps to introducing the RRAA will be for authorities or schools to audit their functions or services in terms of impact on race equality.

The Act recognises that you cannot do everything at once and introduces the concept of proportionality. This means that you can prioritise what you do in your school.

 

What does the general duty mean in practice?
The aim of the general duty is, to make promoting race equality central to all areas of your authority or school life. This will include:

• relevant policies and services
• building these new responsibilities into the work you already do, adapting your plans and priorities
• making sure that you take account of race equality in all your monitoring, reviewing, and evaluation systems
  
  In most cases, you will be able to use your existing arrangements to meet the duty. This should help to avoid any unnecessary work and expense.

Management teams should consider all functions or aspects of the work of the authority or school and prioritise the areas you wish to work on. You may choose for example to then reappraise all existing policies and mainstream race equality to those with a high impact on minority ethnic communities. For example, does your Anti-Bullying policy explicitly acknowledge racial bullying and provide guidance on how this will be addressed in your school. Do staff induction programmes routinely cover equality, and specifically race equality issues ,as a key part of the induction process.

What are the benefits of the general duty?
In meeting the general duty you will be in a position to:

• meet all your pupils' needs, encourage them to achieve their full potential, and
  raise educational standards
• take specific action to tackle any differences between racial groups in terms of their attainment levels and progress, in the use of disciplinary measures against them (such as exclusion), in admissions, or in assessment
• create a positive atmosphere, where there is a shared commitment to value diversity and respect difference
• challenge and prevent racism and discrimination, and promote good relations
  between people from different racial groups
• prepare pupils to be full citizens in today's multi-ethnic society
• make your workforce more representative of the communities you serve
• make full use of the skills and ideas among people from different racial groups
  (for example, in the classroom or as members of school boards)

Meeting the duty will also contribute to meeting the quality indicators suggested into the HMI Self-Evaluation tool: A Route to Equality and Fairness and Quality indicator 5.3 in How Good is Our School. It will also assist your school in meeting other initiatives such as Education for Citizenship.

What is the relationship between the general and the specific duties?
The specific duties have been introduced to help education authorities to meet the general duty. They are a means to an end ­ steps, methods, and arrangements ­ not ends in themselves. The ultimate aim must be for each authority and its schools to meet the general duty.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to ensure schools, private partnership nurseries, other relevant contractors and education related service providers funded by the local authority both meet the requirements of the Act and are given the necessary support to meet these requirements. This needs to be built into the local authority service improvement plan ( as stipulated in the Standards in Scotland's Schools (Scotland) Act 2000) which will in turn inform each school's development planning.

Example: If the monitoring that local authorities or schools carry out under the specific duty on monitoring, shows that children of any minority ethnic origin perform well below average, you should take steps to find out why this is happening. You should then make sure something is done about it, in order to meet the general duty.

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Section 3 Specific duties

Policies and services
Preparing a Race Equality Policy

By 30 November 2002 education authorities in Scotland must have:

• a written statement of their race equality policy with clear indications as to how this will be maintained, monitored and implemented throughout the education services
• arrangements in place for meeting their duties as soon as reasonably possible.
• A race equality policy prepared by an education authority will apply to each school under its management who will have the responsibility of putting the policy into practice.

 

The local authority will develop the authority race equality policy but schools have the responsibility of putting the policy into practice. Implementation of the policy should be part of the development planning arrangements the school already makes. Some education authorities may choose to require that each school in their authority to produce its own race equality policy based on the authority's policy and as part of the authority race equality scheme. This approach is more likely to encourage ownership by individual schools of race equality matters.

What is a race equality policy?
A race equality policy is a description of how education authorities or schools intend to prevent racial discrimination, promote equal opportunities and good race relations across all areas of education service delivery.

A good policy would:

• be part of the authority's service improvement plan or school's development plan
• give details of how the local authority or school will put the policy into practice and assess how effective it is
• clearly define roles and responsibilities, so that people know what is expected of them
• explain clearly what the local authority or school will do if the policy is not followed.

Does the race equality policy have to be a separate policy?
The race equality policy can be combined with another policy such as the authority or school's equal opportunities or diversity policy. However to meet the general duty, there must be a section which is clearly identifiable as a race equality policy and easily available.

It is recommended that if you have a general equal opportunities policy or diversity policy, you should make race equality a separate section ( or series of sections) within it. All staff should be provided with information or training sessions to make them familiar with this policy.

It is also suggested that in time all authority and school policies are examined to ensure race equality issues are embedded into them.

What should the race equality policy cover?
The race equality policy should reflect the character and circumstances of the school, and deal with the main areas that are relevant to promoting the general duty.

For example:

• pupils' attainment, progress and assessment
• curriculum, teaching and learning (including language and cultural needs)
• promoting good race relations in the school and in the local community
• staff recruitment and career development
• staff development
• the school's values
• pupil behaviour, discipline and exclusion
• racial harassment and bullying
• enrolment and transfer procedures
• membership and training of the school board
• involving parents and the community in the school
• personal and social development and the pastoral care of pupils
• pupil attendance

Policies and services
The CRE suggest that the policy should set out arrangements for:
building race equality into the processes for policy planning and development
putting the policy into practice, including a timetable for regular reviews
monitoring and assessing progress towards meeting any race equality targets, and the race equality duty.

 

How should you put the policy into practice?

Education authorities must make sure that each school under its management assesses and monitors the impact of its race equality policy on pupils, staff, and parents from different racial groups.

Schools will have to make sure that they put the race equality policy into practice and deal with issues that arise in the school and in the communities they serve. You may find it useful to link the race equality policy to an action plan, which could be part of your normal planning arrangements.

The School Board should be made and kept fully aware of local authorities and school policies. It will need to make sure that it is clear about the race equality policy and fully understands its implications. The policy could also be a regular item on the agenda at school board meetings. The policy could include plans for training staff and members of the school board to meet their responsibilities. Local authorities are advised to ensure all school boards are aware of the implications of the RRAA2000 on education authority and the work of schools

Parents, guardians, pupils and staff will also need to know what the policy says, and understand what it means for them. It is suggested that you make sure the policy explains how you plan to do this, and to keep everyone up to date with progress.

 

When should you assess your policies?
Schools are not expected to assess all relevant policies at once.
It will be helpful to include a timetable for auditing and assessing all of them.
It will also be useful to be able to show that you have made arrangements to take account of race equality when you review any policies, and when you draw up and consider new ones.

 

How should you assess your policies?
To assess your policies, you will need information, by racial group, on needs, entitlements, and outcomes for pupils, parents, guardians, and staff.
The information should tell you whether your policies impact differently on some racial groups
If you do find differences, and the differences amount to adverse impact, to meet the general duty, you will need to investigate the processes that have led to them.
Adverse impact means significant differences in patterns of representation or outcomes between racial groups.
You should then consider how to remove any barriers and, where necessary, review and revise your policy.

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Section 4: Monitoring

Ethnic Monitoring

The code lists ten questions to assess the impact of your policies, including your race equality policy ­ giving special attention to pupils' attainment levels.

1. Is the authority and it's schools making sure that policies, for example on exclusion, bullying, the curriculum, parental involvement, community involvement, and race equality, are not having an adverse impact on pupils, staff or parents from some racial groups.
2. How do managers across the education authority help all staff to develop and reach their full potential?
3. How does the authority and it's schools encourage all parents to take part fully in the education of their children?
4. Does the authority and it's schools help all pupils to achieve as much as they can, and get the most from what is on offer, based on their individual needs?
5. How does the authority and it's schools monitor the attainment of minority ethnic pupils? How are any differences explained? What steps if any can be taken to address these differences?
6. Does each relevant policy include aims to deal with differences (or possible differences) in pupils' attainments between racial groups? Do the policy's aims lead to action to deal with any differences that have been identified (for example, extra coaching for pupils, or steps to prevent racist bullying)?
7. What is the authority and it's schools doing to raise standards, and promote equality of opportunity for pupils who seem to be underachieving and who may need extra support?
8. What is the authority and it's schools doing to:
   (i) prepare pupils for living in a multi-ethnic society;
   (ii) promote race equality in the the local communities;
   (iii) prevent or deal with racism?
9. Is the action the authority and it's schools has taken appropriate and effective? Are there any unexpected results? If so, how are they being handled?
10. What changes does the authority and it's schools need to make to relevant policies, policy aims, and any related targets and strategies?

 

What information should you use to answer these questions?
To answer these questions, authorities and individual schools could consider:

• collecting and analysing relevant monitoring and other data
• talking to pupils, parents/guardians and staff to find out their needs and opinions
• carrying out surveys or special research.

What should you do with the results of assessments?
Authorities or schools could use the results of these assessments to:

• rethink their race equality objectives
• influence and guide their planning and decision making.

How can you take account of everyone's views and needs?
The CRE recommend that you consider the views and needs of parents, guardians, staff, and pupils who are affected by the policy you are assessing. This could involve explaining clearly to the groups concerned what you are doing and why.
It could also mean looking at how you might communicate better (formally and informally) with pupils, parents, guardians, and staff from different racial groups, and involve them in planning and decision making.
It will be helpful to get feedback on the methods you use to reach various groups, so that you know if the methods are working.

What should you monitor?
To monitor their pupils' attainment, authorities and schools should collect information about pupils' performance and progress, by racial group. You will need to analyse the information, and use it to examine trends. To help interpret this information, you may find it useful to examine it alongside other factors that could have an impact on pupils' attainment.

Factors that may affect pupils' attainment include:

• racial harassment and bullying
• curriculum, teaching and learning methodologies
• the pupil's first language and language development in their home language and English
• impact of punishment and reward schemes
• support, advice and guidance provided
• parents' and guardians' involvement in the school
• attendance
• homework policies
• exclusion ( formal and informal)

The standard monitoring you already carry out, such as assessment of teaching and test and exam results, will give you most of the data you need. However, you could also consider other monitoring methods such as satisfaction surveys, one-to-one interviews, classroom discussion, and feedback exercises on questions such as learning styles and relations between teachers and pupils.

You might also consider monitoring areas that could have an adverse impact on staff parents and guardians from different racial groups.

In the case of staff, this should include the ethnic monitoring of applications for employment, training and promotion, by racial group. Local authorities will collect this information as part of their specific duty on employment in relation to all it's staff including those in the schools it manages.

In the case of parents and guardians, this may include monitoring, by racial group of:

• attendance at meetings or other events for parents and guardians
• membership of the school boards and parent-teacher associations
• access to information, services, and resources for parents and guardians
• complaints

 

How should you use the monitoring data?
Monitoring information will help authorities and their schools to see what progress they are making towards meeting their race equality targets and objectives. In particular, it will help them to:

• highlight any differences in attainment between pupils from different racial groups
• ask why these differences exist, and test the explanations given
• review how effective their current targets and objectives are
• decide what further action may be needed to meet the three parts of the general duty
• improve the performance of pupils from different racial groups

Authorities might also find areas of good practice from schools which can be disseminated Areas requiring attention (such as the lack of up to date race equality learning and teaching resources) might also be uncovered which will have resource budget implications for the authority.

Publishing the results of monitoring
Education authorities must take reasonable and practical steps to publish each year the results of any monitoring carried out to meet the specific duties. Authorities should use the arrangements they already have in place to publish the results of the monitoring. It should be sufficient to publish summaries of the results, highlighting trends and key issues, and outlining the steps they are planning to take.

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Section 5: Education Authority Support to Schools

Education authorities and the duty to promote race equality
Education authorities have a key role to play in encouraging, supporting, and helping schools to develop good practice in achieving race equality, particularly if the work involves meeting the requirements of the duty.

The CRE will encourage education authorities to:

• play an active part in supporting schools in their race equality work
• identify, set up, and promote good practice in achieving race equality in schools
• help to develop positive links between schools and local communities
• provide information, resources, guidance and support, so that schools can develop
  good practice

 

Examples of the type of support schools can expect from their authorities

The following examples show how some education authorities have supported their schools

Reviewing functions
Following a review an education authority drew up an action plan, aimed at building race equality into all areas of its work.

The plan committed the local authority to:

• review of all the policy guidance and support they give schools, to make sure it refers to race equality throughout
• update its guidance for schools on race equality policies, and on how to deal with racial harassment
• make sure that race equality questions were included in its processes for planning, review, and decision-making, particularly in areas such as: school organisation, admission, allocating funds and resources, exclusion, inclusion and behaviour support, curriculum support, school improvement, and special educational needs
• update its monitoring systems, so that data (including ethnic data on pupils' performance and progress, exclusions, and racist incidents) could be broken down and analysed on an education authority, individual school, and 'similar school' basis.
• improve the way it distributed and used the data.
• set up a programme to support schools when they carry out race equality audits and impact assessments.

Workshops on race equality policies

• Organised workshops for schools to guide them through the process of preparing a race equality policy and developing an action plan.
• Schools worked in small groups, so that they could share ideas and practice.
• Good practice was passed on to all schools in the education authority.
• Identified areas of common concern leading on to training events to help schools resolve their problems.

 

Advising schools on monitoring and assessing policies

• Produced of a leaflet on what schools needed to do to meet their duties to monitor and assess the effects of their policies.
• Held a seminar for schools on how to assess the effects of their policies.
• Supported schools, both with assessments and with good practice
• Gave practical support, both through networks and individually, and through its advisers.
• Revised staff monitoring systems and develop and assessed the positive action initiatives taken to increase the recruitment and development of staff from minority ethnic communities in teaching.

Training and support for school board members

• Produced a paper for school board members to inform them of their responsibilities under the duty to promote race equality, and followed this up with a seminar on the specific duties.
• Held meetings for a small group of school board members to discuss race equality issues, especially the question of recruiting and retaining school board members from ethnic minorities.
• Carried out a survey to see how many ethnic minority school board members there were in schools, and set up systems to regularly monitor recruitment and retention. Following the analysis of a 'needs and satisfaction' survey of ethnic minority school board members, the education authority could set up a support network for them.

Helping schools to develop good practice

• set out clearly what good practice is and shared this with schools
• produced guidance on the curriculum which includes advice on the race equality aspects of each subject
• helped schools to identify under-achieving groups and set targets, and gave them professional support to achieve these targets
• used its contacts in the community to improve links between schools and communities, and encouraged schools to become resources for their local communities
• made sure schools had clear procedures for reporting, and acting on, racist incidents
• used How good is our school? and built its guidelines into its school self-evaluation scheme

 

Example: Through its monitoring, an education authority found that Chinese and Scottish Gypsy Traveller pupils were underachieving in its schools. To tackle this, the education authority set up special projects to raise these pupils' achievement levels. Steering groups, chaired by the director of education and including representatives from both communities, oversaw the projects.

Education authority support for schools

• Resources for schools
• Carried out an audit of the resources its schools use.
• Set up a database to help teachers find suitable resources more easily. The database included details of artists and others who had dealt with the subjects of racism and diversity in their work, as well as materials that schools have developed or used in lessons or projects on these subjects.

 

Reaching parents and guardians, and communities

Example: A number of schools in an education authority faced potentially difficult situations when parents and guardians wanted to take their children on extended holidays to the Indian sub-continent. As a result of consultations, the education authority, with support from the REC director, a small group of parents and guardians from ethnic minorities, representatives from the community and staff from several local schools, drew up a policy on extended leave.

The policy set out:

• when it would be acceptable for parents and guardians to ask for extended leave
• what parents and guardians were expected to do
• how the education authority would support pupils on extended leave.

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Section 6: Support available from the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland(CERES)

If you require advice, staff in CERES will be able to assist. From November 2002 -February 2003, we will have an officer dedicated to assist schools and education authorities take forward the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Contact Alan Bell or Rowena Arshad on 0131 651 6371. For information about training videos or materials contact the CERES Information Officer Rana Syed on 0131 651 6274.

OR E-MAIL CERES WITH YOUR REQUEST TO ceres@ed.ac.uk

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