Scots not ready for race laws, inspector says

Scotland's further education colleges are ill-prepared to meet the demands of new race relations legislation, an HM inspector has warned, writes Olga Wojtas.

Iain MacRobert said the recent inspectorate report on racial equality in Scottish colleges had found that although all those responding had an equal opportunities policy, only a quarter explicitly addressed race. Less than a third had strategies for preventing racism, but only two of the 47 colleges said they were promoting positive attitudes to cultural diversity.

Dr MacRobert was addressing a conference organised by the Equality Challenge Unit, which aims to further equal opportunities in higher education, and the Commission for Racial Equality Scotland.

By the end of November's, Scottish universities and colleges will have to comply with new legislation that is likely to demand written policy on promoting race equality, and an assessment of the impact of policies on students and staff from different racial groups.

Dr MacRobert said a fifth of colleges had no analysis of which groups their students belonged to, while even more had no analysis of staff ethnicity. Data from the Scottish Further Education Funding Council suggested that 2.4 per cent of further education students were from ethnic minorities, broadly reflecting the general population. But 30 per cent of students were shown as "ethnicity not known", compared with a figure of 11 per cent south of the border.