Pupils who speak English as a first language are in the minority in 1,300 schools across England. According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, in 1,388 primary and secondary schools, the majority of students do not speak English as their first language. This accounts for 1 in 20 of all schools in England.

Such high numbers of inexperienced, and in many cases, incapable, English speakers is putting a high burden on Britain’s education system. Far more disturbing than this, though, is that it shows how much immigration is taking place in Britain—and how little immigrants are doing to integrate themselves into the culture of their new home.

Mick Brookes, secretary general of the National Association of Head Teachers, issued a grave warning to a House of Lords committee. According to Brookes, the situation is now “out of control.” A rush of immigrants into an area could “strain or even break the resources of the school,” he said.

Although some students with English as a second language may be proficient at it, many are not. Having large numbers of unskilled English speakers in a school can drastically hurt the education of both the non-English speakers and their more literate peers.

The government’s solution is to throw more money at the problem. Additional funding has been pledged, though teachers complain that this is still not enough. The government, however, is missing the point entirely. While this issue is a cause of major problems in education, more importantly it is a growing symptom of Britain’s immigration crisis.

As noted in our article “The Trouble With Immigration: Cultural Impact,” language is a key component of culture. If children in Britain are not learning English effectively, then they are not being assimilated into the English culture.

Why is this a problem? As the Trumpet wrote two years ago:

One of Abraham Lincoln’s most famous statements—actually quoting Jesus Christ—was that a house, or nation, divided against itself cannot stand. The division America faced in Lincoln’s day involved the lamentable mistreatment of the “strangers” within its gates—something God’s Word expressly forbids. But a century later, the cause for division had become the crusade to preserve immigrants’ cultural uniqueness by not assimilating. And this more recent problem has come to not only threaten American identity—but even to threaten internal peace and stability.

America is becoming increasingly divided due to massive immigration. Britain is suffering from the same problem. Watch for racial tensions to increase in both these countries in the future. As both Christ and Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” A divided Britain is a weak Britain. It is a Britain beset by internal strife. It is a Britain that cannot stand.

For more information on the immigration problem and how, ultimately, it will be solved, read “The Trouble With Immigration.”