Experts "blame" the increase of racially segregated schools on a "white flight" phenomenon, where ethnic minorities have moved into a district and white people have moved out.

Startling new figures reveal that Oldham appears to be moving backwards in its efforts to improve community cohesion among the borough’s youngest citizens.

The statistics obtained by the Advertiser show that more local primary schools than ever are now divided along racial lines – with a total of seven schools made up entirely of children from ethnic backgrounds, and many more dominated by pupils of either white or Asian heritage.

It means thousands of children are growing up having little contact with children from different ethnic backgrounds.  The figures re-ignite the debate about what needs to be done to reverse racial division in our community – a key cause of previous unrest.

Today, primary schools including Alexandra Park, Burnley Brow, Horton Mill Infant, Nursery and Junior, Westwood, Greenhill Primary, Werneth Infant and Nursery and St Hilda’s C.E do not have a single white pupil on the roll.

Secondary schools continue to slide towards monoculturalism with, as one example, 98.5 per cent of Grange’s pupils from Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian heritage – in the 80s this figure was around 10 per cent

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Professor Ted Cantle, who wrote the ‘parallel lives’ report five years after the riots, believes Oldham Council may have to take a "firmer approach" in promoting the benefits of mixed schools. Please feel free to contact Ted Cantle here.