PARENTS at six primary and secondary schools in riot-scarred Oldham are to be invited to attend racial awareness classes.

The move is part of the council’s response to the inquiry into last summer’s race riots.

That review recommended that “all parents should be mindful of their responsibility to equip their children (with) ... the skills and attitudes necessary to live in a multi-cultural society.”

Tony Harrison, Oldham’s National Union of Teachers divisional secretary, said schools had to face up to the challenge of a town segregated along racial lines. He said: “You have to recognise that there has been no planning of segregation in schools, it is just something that happened.

“But that segregation is harmful to the town, and now Oldham’s education authority has the courage to see that.”

He said he expected the race classes to confront prejudices by taking a strong anti-racist stance.

“We need to go a stage further than multi-culturalism and talk about the roots of racism, such as fear and jealousy, before doing anything about it,” he said.

Oldham Council’s draft interim response to the inquiry also says that the town’s three almost exclusively white faith schools - Blue Coat, Crompton House and Our Lady’s - should now open their doors to Muslim pupils, though it accepted this was “a matter for the governing bodies and diocesan authorities.”

In the last general election the far-right British National party secured 18,000 votes in Oldham.

The election followed three nights of ferocious clashes between white and Asian youths last May.

The review into the causes of the riots was led by top civil servant David Ritchie. It concluded that mixed-race specialist schools should act as beacons, and that faith schools should admit other religions.