Parents Against UK Pupil Nationality Data Collection Amid Brexit Uncertainty

With the rise of anti-immigration sentiment and in the wake of Brexit, parents who are living in the UK and come from other countries in Europe have expressed some worry over how the data could be used in the future.   

The parliamentary undersecretary for the Department for Education (DfE) Lord Nash confirmed that data can be removed, when parents confirm they want this to happen.

"Where a parent has exercised this right, the Department will remove any information collected on country of birth and nationality during the autumn census," Lord Nash said in an online government statement.

This latest move has come after campaigners expressed concern at the way data can be retracted and used in the future.

In May the government announced plans to add the collection of country-of-birth and nationality data to the schools census. The data was then collected for the first time in October 2016.

The information is being collected for inclusion in the National pupil database (NPD). The NPD helps civil servants and researchers get a full picture of a school's roll, and the government has claimed the additional information is needed to make that picture more complete.

"Collecting this data will be used to help us better understand how children with, for example, English as an additional language perform in terms of their broader education, and to assess and monitor the scale and impact immigration may be having on the schools sector," a DfE spokesperson said.

This anxiety increased in October, when the government started to collect data and some parents were asked by their schools to let them know if their child is not a UK national; some of those parents were also asked to provide a passport for their child.

​Against Borders for Children (ABC) is a coalition of parents, teachers, schools and campaigners that led the call to halt the collection of data. ABC believe that the information could be used for immigration purposes. 

"We are concerned that this data could be used by immigration enforcement to target individual children and families. If this information is collected, members of the public, journalists, government departments, and other organizations will also be able to access schools' immigration numbers. With a huge rise in racist hate crime since the Brexit vote, we fear for the safety of schoolchildren nationwide," ABC said in an online statement. 

With no clear understanding what will happen once Britain leaves the EU, the concern that children, who were not born in the UK, may no longer be welcome, appears to be a valid worry after all.