A “language levy” and a tougher English language test for immigrant families are among controversial proposals to help schools cope with large numbers of new pupils without basic English. The education ministry may also find more money for teaching language skills to new immigrant pupils.

Meanwhile one Auckland primary school wants to introduce an enrolment residency clause which could be used to exclude immigrant Asian children without basic English for up to a year.

The school, Epsom Normal primary, believes it is acting within the law, but human rights and race equality issues have been raised in the debate about its introduction.

Like many schools in Auckland, Epsom is overcrowded and has a relatively large and increasing number of pupils without basic English. About 10 per cent of the school’s 720 pupils have little or no English - up to a third in some classes. Most of the Epsom newcomers are from North Asian business immigrant families.

Epsom’s board chairman, Ian Braddock, said the proposed residency clause would still give the board discretion to admit pupils who had not lived in the area for a year under certain circumstances. “A number of factors will be considered. One of these may be the basic English language skills of the applicant,” Mr Braddock said. The basic English test might take the form of an interview with the principal. The school board has been consulting parents and the local community, he added, and there was a strong feeling that the government should do more to help schools meet basic English needs.

The education ministry is providing $NZ 1.2 million (Pounds 480,000) this year for teaching English as a second language, up from $NZ 500,000 two years ago. And now education minister Lockwood Smith has hinted more money could be made available.

Owen Hoskin, the education ministry’s Auckland manager, said a number of Auckland schools had enrolment schemes to cope with overcrowding, some of them with residency clauses. He said a residency clause was not in contravention of the Education Act, but if a parent felt a child was being discriminated against on race or human rights grounds, the ministry would recommend they take their complaint to the Race Relations Office or the Human Rights Commissioner.

According to the ministry, there were 2,700 children in New Zealand schools last year who could not understand basic greetings in English, 2,000 of them in Auckland. Of the total, 1,200 were in primary schools. There were 53,000 students for whom English was a second language and about 38,000 of those were getting English language tuition.

Immigration minister Roger Maxwell said a more rigorous English test was one option being considered in an immigration policy which has been under way for 10 months.

The language levy, which the ministry has rejected in the past as too difficult to administer fairly, is another option. It would be related to income and would pay for new pupils to learn enough English to enter the education system. The Government also plans to build 19 new schools in Auckland.