THOUSANDS of pounds of Government cash is to be injected into Sussex schools to help ethnic minority and travellers'

children.

The Department for Education and Employment announced the windfall, which councils will add to, to be spent on extra staff and better language materials for the children.

The Ethnic Minority Achievement and Traveller Grants will go directly to head teachers and will be available in the year 2000/1. Schools in Brighton and Hove will receive £143,417 of Government cash, boosted by £103,853 from Brighton and Hove Council.

East Sussex schools will get £194,260 from the Government and East Sussex County Council will add £140,671.

And in West Sussex, a Government award of £331,216 will be boosted by £239,846 from the county council.

Jackie Whitford, head of traveller education at East Sussex County Council, said: "Report after report has shown that ethnic minority and traveller children are most at risk of not gaining access and achieving education.

"The money will be spent on specialist welfare officers to help gipsies and children visiting from other countries into a school as quickly as possible."

The grants have gone up by seven per cent compared with those given in the current school year.

And from January, the Office for Standards in Education will be reporting on how effectively schools provide for pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds and the standards they achieve.

Schools Minister Jacqui Smith said: "The grant is aimed at helping ethnic minority and traveller pupils particularly at risk of underachieving and to meet the needs of pupils for whom English is not their first language.

"The grant will largely go direct to schools so that head teachers can use it where it is most needed - to employ more teachers and teaching assistants, particularly improving language skills, and to work with their local communities.

"While many Asian children do better in exams, achievement in other minority communities is far too weak.

"It is vital that minority ethnic and traveller children have the same opportunities to fulfil their potential as everyone else.

"That is why we are also targeting their specific needs."

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