Bob Marley
- 1981-05-31
Education in Haringey
Haringey Council plan to close six schools, prompting pupils and their families to assess their options.
It's 1980 and Trevor Phillips reports on imminent changes to comprehensive secondary schools in Haringey for Skin, the regional affairs programme looking at issues affecting Black and Asian communities in London. This edition opens on the heart of the issue: two boys are doing ther homework, while a voiceover from their mum reveals her anxiety that their school could be closed down soon. "I think it's the only future, really, for Black people in this country, to have a good education" she says, soberly.
Interviews with the Local Education Authority, educators, students and parents show differences in opinion as to why schools in the borough need restructuring as well as how to ensure that any closures don't unfairly disadvantage West Indian families. Officially, it's to do with demographic shifts resulting in lower school admissions (and lower per-pupil budgets).
But as is typical with Skin, interviews with the affected communities show the emotional weight of such decision making. A segment about dissatisfied parents opting for private education includes a look at the growth of the John Loughborough School in Tottenham, a church-funded Seventh Day Adventist school, demonstrating the potential ramifications of state school closures without sensationalism or alarm.
Black parents and teachers opposed the Haringey Council's plan to reorganise
its schools, and discuss the possibility of creating their own schools.
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Multicultural TV
This collection covers programming that emerged from specialist multicultural and Black broadcasting units.
A multicultural Britain was forebodingly cast as an oncoming social issue. Only at the behest of campaigning by the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (established in 1965) did the programming introduced begin to frame Asian and later Black Britons as part of British society and cater directly to their needs. The earliest examples were programmes broadcast by the BBC Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye (1965) and Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan (New Life), which helped improve the English skills of recent Asian migrants.
Targeted programming initially emerged regionally, and franchise holders in the midlands who feared the impending reallocation of franchises reacted quickly, leading to multicultural programming such as Here Today, Here Tomorrow (ATV, 1978), Here and Now (Central TV, 1978). In London, London Weekend Television produced Babylon (LWT, 1979), and the London Minorities Unit produced Skin (1980), an extensive focus of our collection. During the emergence of Channel 4, Black programming was in-built into the new channel. Black commissioners, researchers, and presenters emerged, leading to Black and Asian-led series like Black on Black (1982), Eastern Eye (1982), Bandung File (1985), and Black Bag (1985). These programmes catered not only with increasing specificity to their respective audiences but also took on an increasingly globally connective approach centred around acknowledging the intricacy of diasporic relations.
25 videos in this collection
1
Bob Marley
2
Black Actors
3
Attacks on Asians and West Indians
4
Immigration Laws Part 1
5
Bengalis and the Rag Trade
6
Here and Now
7
After the Deptford Fire: A Watershed in British Relations
8
Here and Now
9
Multi-cultural Education
10
Divided Families
11
Football
12
Blues Parties
13
Here and Now
14
Asian Doctors
15
Here and Now
16
25 Years of Black British Part 4
17
Education in Haringey
18
Benjamin Zephaniah, James Berry and Buchi Emecheta at Words to Life (Here and Now)
19
The Deptford Fire
20
Police - Black Relations Part Two
21
Black Churches
22
Immigration Laws Part 2
23
Villain Boroughs
24
Housing in Southall
25