E/CN.4/1996/72/Add.4 page 9 36. However, some think that insufficient attention is paid to cultural diversity, that the national curriculum continues to overemphasize British and Christian culture and that teachers do not receive adequate training in nonracist attitudes that could facilitate their relations with students from ethnic minorities. Many such students have problems in school because English is not their mother tongue. The special courses organized for them have not yet achieved the desired results, and recruitment of bilingual teachers remains insufficient. 37. There is a strong trend towards academic failure among children and adolescents from ethnic minorities, particularly in the Afro-Caribbean and Bangladeshi communities, perhaps as a result of problems present in those communities (the break-up of families, tension between the traditional and British cultures, parental unemployment and poverty), but also because the school environment is hostile to them and teachers may be prejudiced against them. For example, Afro-Caribbean children and adolescents are often considered to be undisciplined and to have little interest in school and, as a result, are marginalized and excluded for the slightest act of misbehaviour. 38. Many young Blacks leave school with a low level of education and without qualifications, only to add to the relatively high numbers of unemployed among ethnic communities. 39. Students from ethnic minorities may also be psychologically affected by racist harassment from their fellow-students to the point that their studies suffer in consequence. 40. Even members of ethnic minorities with excellent school records find it difficult to obtain employment, particularly during the current period of job scarcity. Whereas the unemployment rate in 1993 was an estimated 9.5 per cent for Whites, it was 37.3 per cent for Africans, 30 per cent for Pakistanis, 27.7 per cent for Bangladeshis, 25 per cent for Afro-Caribbeans and 15 per cent for Indians. 41. Many qualified members of ethnic minorities are obliged to do manual labour or take unskilled jobs (cleaners, security guards, taxi drivers, etc.) or are confined to subordinate positions during their entire career in, for example, the public services. A recent Health Department report 7/ notes that racism and racial discrimination are widespread in the health services and that supervisors are reluctant to implement equal opportunity policies, preferring to promote white nurses rather than their black colleagues. E. Housing discrimination 42. In the public or semi-public sector controlled by the Housing Council, certain practices may be considered discriminatory. Immigrant or ethnic-minority families, most of which are large, wait longer than others before receiving housing and are initially given dilapidated apartments. In some cases, ethnic concentration is encouraged by administrative officials particularly keen to minimize racial harassment and violence against minority groups.