A LEADING anti-racism organisation has welcomed recent steps to tackle racist discrimination in Wales' schools, but warned more needed to be done to stamp out the "widespread" problem.

In April, the Gwent community was shocked to hear about the case of 11-year-old Raheem Bailey, who had to have a finger amputated after he injured his hands fleeing an alleged bullying attack at his Abertillery school.

His mum later alleged Raheem had been subjected to racist and physical abuse "for months".

South Wales Argus:

The incident drew an outpouring of public support for Raheem, as well as outrage - the Welsh Government's education minister, Jeremy Miles, said he was “shocked and saddened” to hear of Raheem's situation. A police and local authority investigation is ongoing.

'Conditioned to living with racial inequality'

Earlier this month, the government published its Anti-racist Wales Action Plan - its authors saying that while people in Wales were "collectively perturbed" by racism, moves to counter it were passive.

"For too long, we have believed that racial inequality will disappear without sustained efforts to challenge and eradicate it," said Emmanuel Ogbonna and Andrew Goodall, who chaired the panel behind the report. "In many respects, we have become conditioned to living with racial inequality in a way that has made it a self-perpetuating aspect of reality."

The new plan, then, sets out strategies for tackling racism in all aspects of Welsh life, including in education - a 2020 study by charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) found such discrimination was "widespread" in Wales' schools and "underestimated" by teachers.

Indeed, that study found huge disparities in the way students and staff witnessed racism. One in four staff said they had observed or received a report of racial discrimination in the previous 12 months, but nearly 80 per cent of pupils said they believed racism existed in their schools.

SRTRC recommended the Welsh Government adopt an "anti-racist" attitude to education and, in the wake of the ministers' new plan, we asked the charity if it felt enough progress had been made.

SRTRC Wales campaign manager Dean Pymble said the charity welcomed the government's "strong stance" and noted the strategies in the ministers' plan "reflect many of those included in our own 2020 report" and would receive long-term funding.

'Devastating incidents'

"In our 2020 report, the big asks were around improving school staff knowledge and confidence in being actively anti-racist and challenging racism where it occurs," Mr Pymble told the Argus. He called the funding of a new professional learning collaboration, DARPL, an "important first step... [but] funding must be ongoing in order for anti-racism organisations to reach every educator in Wales".

Mr Pymble also welcomed government plans to back so-called "diversity champions" in schools who could lead anti-racist education. 

But he warned there is still some way to go.

"While overall, there has been a hugely positive drive towards embedding anti-racism in education, we feel that closer attention must be paid to how schools are monitoring, recording and responding to racist incidents," Mr Pymble said.

"This would be more transparent if a regular statistics bulletin was produced including numbers of incidents and actions taken as a result. Whilst devastating incidents are still widespread in Wales, we feel positive steps are being taken to keeping all our children safe and making all feel that key sense of belonging in the future."

More teachers from ethnic-minority backgrounds

Responding to Mr Pymble's assessment, a spokesperson for the Welsh Government said: “We welcome Show Racism the Red Card’s constructive comments and we continue to work with partner organisations to achieve our goal of an anti-racist Wales by 2030.

“Our Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan includes our work towards an anti-racist education system, with our new Curriculum including mandatory teaching of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic histories and experiences.

“Among our other actions, we are committed to increasing the number of teachers from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds and are introducing financial incentives from this year to increase the diversity of our teaching workforce across the whole of Wales.”