PUPILS who speak English as a second language are to be offered more support under new council plans.

PUPILS who speak English as a second language are to be offered more support under new council plans.

Glasgow City Council has approved proposals to reorganise teaching services to offer more dedicated support to bilingual children and young people.

There are currently around 9500 pupils across the city with English as a second language - 12.5% of the school population.

In a report, officials at Glasgow City Council revealed about 30% of the 9500 children whose parents are migrant workers, asylum seekers or refugees are not getting the support required.

Under the plan staff will be allocated to New Learning Communities under which social work, education and health services are organised and then deployed to respond to local needs.

Around 3000 foreign national children have enrolled in schools since 2005 from more than 100 countries speaking 86 languages.

The council employs 140 specialist staff at a cost of over £5million, but resources for support services have not been increased in recent years.

Education officials have also called on the Scottish Government to provide extra money to cope with the rise in bilingual pupils.

Councillor Gordon Matheson, Glasgow's education spokesman, said: "Glasgow employs many more teaching specialists, to support children and young people whose first language isn't English, than any other council in the country.

"However, we need to change how we allocate and organise this service to better meet recent population changes.

"We have consulted very widely about this restructure. No jobs will be lost as a result of these changes."

On Friday, the SNP opposition on the council suggested ways of raising the extra funds for the plan but were outvoted in favour of the Labour plan to reallocate staff.