There have been several news stories over the past week stating that one in three children in Glasgow schools don’t speak English as their first language.
In a video published on Reform UK’s YouTube channel, Nigel Farage says that “nearly one in three pupils in Scottish schools only has English as a second language”.
So what are the facts?
The “1 in 3” figure is roughly correct, and it does come from official Scottish Government data. However, it applies to Glasgow, not to Scotland as a whole, as suggested in Reform UK’s video. So let’s look at the Glasgow data.
Where do the numbers come from?
The statistic comes from the Scottish Government’s Pupil Census Supplementary Statistics 2024.
In Table 5.9, 20,717 pupils in Glasgow City are recorded as having English as an Additional Language (EAL). The total number of pupils in Glasgow is 71,957, confirmed in Table 5.2.
This is where the “one in three” figure comes from. In percentage terms, pupils classed as EAL make up 28.8% of Glasgow’s school population.
Scotland-wide, we see a slightly different picture. The total number of pupils in Scotland with English as an Additional Language is 11.6%.
What does EAL actually mean?
EAL does not mean that a child can’t speak English.
Of the 20,717 pupils in Glasgow City schools recorded as having English as an Additional Language, only 3,299 (15.9%) are classed as “new to English”. The remaining pupils range from developing to fluent in English.
Put another way, pupils who are new to English make up 4.6% of the total school population in Glasgow.
The majority of children included in the original “1 in 3” figure already speak English well. Some were born in Scotland, and fully fluent. Some have been educated here since nursery. Many speak more than one language at home. They are counted under EAL because another language exists alongside English, not because English is a problem for them.
Why is “additional language” being emphasised?
When headline-grabbing figures about English as an Additional Language are highlighted, it’s worth asking why. In a city like Glasgow, where diversity is a normal part of school life, these figures can easily be misunderstood if taken at face value.
If the concern is education, communication, or classroom support, the most relevant group would be pupils who are genuinely new to English, which is a much smaller number than “1 in 3”.
So why is the broadest possible category being used instead? What purpose does that serve?
Why focus on children at all?
Another question is why this discussion is centred so heavily on children.
These headlines are not about asylum seekers, migration policy, or border control.
They are about children attending school, many of whom were born in the UK and are integrating well into school life.
When political movements (including local groups such as AAIM) state one of their main goals as “the protection of women and children” , draw attention to children in this way, it raises an obvious question:
Who is being protected here, and from what?
Is the implication that “1 in 3” children are a problem?
If so, what problem are they responsible for?