The draft guidelines urging Bradford schools to make more use of Asian pupils' mother tongues rather than insisting that lessons should be in English are well-meant. Those behind the proposals say that all languages should be valued and all pupils treated equally, whatever their first language.

Few, surely, would disagree with that. But valuing and respecting mother tongues is a different matter to allowing them to predominate in the district's classrooms.

The purpose of education is to give children the best possible chance of making a success of their lives and fulfilling their potential when they leave school. It is an inescapable fact that those who have a good command of English - which is the language of the vast majority of workplaces as well as the language in which tests and examinations are set, from early-years SATs to A-levels - will generally fare better in the jobs market than those who don't.

Those charged with deciding whether or not these guidelines should be adopted would be wrong to overlook this reality.

It is possible that, as advocates of the policy suggest, children who are allowed to use their home language in lessons might learn more quickly in that language. But it will also weaken the incentive to learn English.

The big danger of this policy surely is that it will put an official seal of approval on the reluctance of many Asian parents to help and encourage their children to speak English - something which should be a priority if they are to stand the best chance of competing on equal terms for the jobs and careers available in the wider world beyond their own communities.