COUNCILLORS have been urged to give the same treatment to all nationalities and cultures when allocating educational grants.

Liberal councillor Karimeh Foster raised the issue of providing grants to mosques for so-called mother tongue teaching at a meeting of Blackburn with Darwen council.

It follows a controversial spending commitment made in the council's Educational White Paper to continue providing £25,000 for the grants.

She said: "If it can be shown that there are good educational reasons for this, should it not be extended to other groups?

"We have significant groups within our community from a wide variety of national and culture traditions."

However, Tory councillor John Williams said: "I have been told that that the grant is not being used for mother tongue teaching at all. It is a hand-out, paying for general background teaching about the Asian culture."

Defending the decision, education and training vice chairman Kathy Stephenson said: "This grant is just one of many existing grants we have promised to honour for a year."

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