A PUBLIC inquiry should be held into the historic racism scandal of schools labelling black children “educationally subnormal,” a Labour MP has said.

Kim Johnson told a Commons debate on Wednesday evening that  children who were stigmatised in that way in the 1960s and ’70s were sent to schools for disabled pupils, affecting them for life.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer must act to secure justice for survivors and examine the long-term impact on the education system, Ms Johnson said.

She told MPs that “many racist barriers still exist in education” as a result of black children being forced into “educationally subnormal” (ESN) schools.

“The closure of ESN schools in the 1980s directly led to a rapid expansion in the use of school exclusions and we began to see higher numbers incarcerated in prisons,” she said.

However, the government is unlikely to support Ms Johnson’s call. 

Education Minister Catherine McKinnell said the government “doesn’t currently plan to establish a public inquiry” but was committed to ensuring “Britain is a country that will respect your contribution and will give you a fair chance to get on in life.”

Earlier this week, survivors met in Parliament with campaigners and education experts to share harrowing testimonies of school racism and the impact it had on their lives.

Ms Johnson told the Guardian: “The same fundamental systems that excluded black children from mainstream education decades ago still exist today, just in different forms.

“ESN schools may have gone, but black children are still disproportionately pushed into pupil referral units and alternative provision, feeding into the school-to-prison pipeline.”