Teachers’ union passes motion at annual conference challenging government’s use of data collected by state schools in England

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Parents are being told not to supply information on their children’s nationality and birthplace being demanded by the government, amid fears that the information could be used to enforce immigration laws.

The National Union of Teachers’ annual conference passed a motion condemning the Department for Education’s attempts to record pupils’ nationality and country of birth in the national pupil database (NPD), with delegates told that the details could be passed to the Home Office and police.

“The problem with this information is that it will be used to reinforce racist immigration controls. It can lead to raids and deportations. So we need to shout from the rooftops that parents should not comply with this. They don’t have to do it,” Jan Nielsen, a teacher from Wandsworth in south-west London, told delegates.

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Since September 2016, the DfE has asked parents to supply the nationality details of individual pupils enrolled in state schools in England, as part of the termly school census.

While parents are not legally obliged to supply the information, controversy emerged when it was revealed that the DfE regularly passed on NPD information in response to requests from the police and Home Office.

The motion passed by the NUT conference in Cardiff requires the union to challenge the government’s use of the data, and help schools inform parents “that they are not required to provide census information even though the schools are required to ask for it”.

Des Barrow, a teacher from Hackney, said there had been “shocking examples” of how the data collection was taking place in some schools.

“In a primary school in my borough, parents were told that they had to provide birth certificates and passport numbers, which is completely untrue. In a school in Berkshire, different letters were sent out to children depending on their ethnicity,” Barrow said.

“This is shocking, this should not be happening. There’s no educational worth whatsoever in collecting this data.

Elsewhere in the conference teachers spoke of incidents of racism they encountered. Sharon John, a black primary school teacher, recalled a job interview where a school governor told her: “We could really do with a gospel choir.”

“I smiled, I didn’t say anything but I racked my brains to think: was that part of my training?” she told delegates.

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Niparun Nessa, a teacher from Oldham, said she had regularly been confused with the only other Asian member of staff at a school she had worked. “Everyone assumed we were the same person – both children and staff,” she said.

The conference also passed a motion calling for a strike ballot of members “if no progress is made in talks with the government” over restoring the value of teachers’ salaries to 2010 levels. Delegates at the conference have previously approved industrial action in protest at school funding cuts, and an internal ballot to boycott primary school tests.



Kevin Courtney, the NUT’s general secretary, said the government’s pay policies over the last six years had resulted in 15% real-terms cuts to teachers’ pay.

“The NUT has repeatedly warned that if the government continues its strategy of below-inflation pay awards for teachers, cutting the real value of pay and reducing its competitiveness, teacher supply problems will persist and the quality of education provision will decline,” Courtney said after the motion was passed.

The Department for Education said: “The data in the National Pupil Database helps give us a clear picture of how the school system is working. We take privacy extremely seriously and access to sensitive data is strictly controlled. As we have made clear, nationality and country of birth information is solely for use by the Department for Education, and will not be shared with any other organisation‎.”