A COURSE has been set up at Northumbria University to help youngsters from ethnic minorities settle into school and college more easily.

The part-time free course, funded by the Tyne and Wear Learning and Skills Council, will train people to become bilingual education specialists, who will work in schools and colleges across the North-East to help children from other countries get the most out of their education.

Course leaders are looking for people who are fluent in English and at least one other language, in particular Albanian, Urdu, Bengali, Spanish, Turkish and Serbo-Croat.

The course will start later this month and lasts three hours a week over 13 weeks. Financial help may be available for travelling and childcare costs.

One of the trainers, Russian Irina Bystrova, said: "In some areas, there are concentrations of ethnic minorities and the language barriers can cause real problems for teachers as well as the students and their families. These bilingual specialists have a crucial role to play.''

Anyone interested in the scheme is asked to call 0191-215-6104.