Bbc News Today

[tamaris]

BBC news today five English councils told to adopt integration plans. When I lived in Spain I started learning the language a year before I went there. I think this money would be better served on the NHS. Just saying.

[tamaris]

You have a point ymb

[andres]

Good luck with this one . I remember in the early 60s in Rochdale. When the Pakistani men started to bring their wives over all manner of things were tried to make the women feel at home. They couldn't speak English and never left their houses on their own. The men did the shopping , took the children to school and when their wives did accompany them the men did all the talking for them. When walking in the street the women were always a few steps behind the men. The women back then were cold and distant and had a very aloof air. The local council bent over backwards to help the women. There were not many Urdu /Punjabi speaking local people so classes were set up for English women to learn the languages.( not men because the Pakistani men would not allow strange men going into their homes. ) . When the basics of Urdu or Punjabi had been mastered the idea was to go into their homes and befriend the Pakistani women and help them with their English.
In schools extra classes were arranged for the non- English speaking children. What happened then was that the children acted as interpreters for their mothers and things did get a bit better. The mothers started to take the children to school and began to go into shops .But the Pakistani men were always complaining about something or other. They didn't want their little girls to wear vests /shorts for P.E. and insisted that they should keep their pantaloons on. No bacon or pork at school dinnertimes. No male doctor had to examine their women or girls. Prayers were held in a terraced house (no mosques then )and the women had to sit in another room. Back then there was no effort made to integrate at all from the Pakistanis. And now decades on there has just been planning permission given for an Islamic boys only school in Blackburn for 600 . Still no willingness to integrate.It's not a language problem. It's a cultural one.

[tamaris]

That is very I interesting andres