Indian, Chinese have healthy representation in grammar schools

Updated on: Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Children of Indian and Chinese ethnicity are found to have greater representation in Britain's academically-oriented grammar schools than their overall share of population, new government figures have shown.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, experts believe immigrants and ethnic-minority parents are far more likely than their white working-class counterparts to see education as a way to advance themselves in society.

Hence their greater representation in the secondary grammar schools to which entry is controlled by means of an academically selective process which sometimes consists of a written examination.

"In big cities some groups, particularly Indians and Chinese, have far higher numbers of children in grammar schools than would be suggested by their share of the overall population," the newspaper report said quoting new government figures.

While white grammar-school children, who remain the biggest group, are more likely to be middle class, those from minorities often come from far poorer backgrounds.

The government analysis - which covers Greater London, the Black Country and Greater Manchester - shows that, in the capital, 12 per cent of grammar-school children are of Indian origin, twice the proportion of Indians in the capital's schools overall.

Children of Chinese origin account for 4 per cent - four times their overall proportion.

The difference is similarly striking in the West Midlands, excluding Birmingham, where 19 per cent of those bright enough to win grammar-school places are ethnically Indian, although they make up just 9 per cent of all children in the region.

Only in Manchester are Indians slightly under-represented. In all three areas children from African and Caribbean families are the most under-represented group in grammar schools.

Schools with high proportions of ethnic-minority pupils include Queen Elizabeth's, a boys' grammar in Bernet, north London, one of the country's top-performing schools.

There, just 16 per cent of children are white British, 32 per cent are Indian and 9 per cent are Chinese.

Only about 8.6 per cent of the borough's population is Indian and 2 per cent Chinese.

Indian, Chinese have healthy representation in grammar schools

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