Crays Hill, Essex, UK, February 1, 2008: One thing you quickly realize at Dale Farm: there are lots of kids around, with time on their hands. Some of them appear younger than eleven. This is against the law. All children of primary school age should be in school.

Before we leave for Colchester, Grattan, James and I visit the local government (primary) school at Crays Hill, a nearby village. None of the older Travellers at Dale Farm went to school, and the best way to break the cycle of illiteracy is to educate their children.

In other words, the Crays Hill primary school, which caters ot all children in the area, is on the front line of the larger struggle. Unfortunately, and all too often, it has been used as a weapon, rather than an opportunity.

When the Travellers started to enroll their children at Crays Hill, the locals pulled their children out, and attendance fell from 210 to just 40. This immediately turned the school into a school for illegal Travellers. The locals might just as well have hung a huge sign on the roof.

But the Travellers don’t help by pulling their children out without warning, interrupting their studies and playing havoc with the school curriculum. The educational performance at Crays Hill is one of the worst in the country.

There’s a slow, simmering crisis here – and also a lost opportunity. The teachers are unbelievably dedicated, and spend a lot of time reaching out to the Travellers and driving home the message of education.

Sometimes they run down the road after children who get up and walk out of school, in frustration. Their efforts are paying off. Attendance has risen back past 80 and they include three non-Traveller children. There are Travellers and non-Travellers on the school board.

These people deserves a medal. Instead, they’ve getting the cold shoulder from people who should know better. They include our friend Jon Austin who writes for the Basildon Echo, the local paper. Jon is always looking an anti-Traveller angle, and in one piece he even raised questions about a decision to provide buses to drive the Dale Farm children to the school. No matter that the kids had been walking down a dangerous lane – another disincentive to their school attendance. To Jon, the buses were another sign of the legalization of Dale Farm by stealth.

The central government, in London, is positively craven. It goes without saying that the modest progress in education at the Crays Hill school would be swept away by eviction. But instead of viewing this as a wake-up call, several inspectors and two ministers have concluded that eviction is just fine because the Travellers are not serious about education.

Read, for example, the report of Inspector Ruth MacKenzie (September 21, 2006) who concludes that the Travellers’ “commitment to education is not wholehearted.” Or the finding of Secretary of State Ruth Kelly (February 22, 2007): education is less important than the need to respect planning decisions. Or the January 21, 2008 conclusion of her successor as Secretary of State, Yvette Cooper: “The children would not be deprived of their right to education.”

Do any of these people take education seriously? Do they understand how education can serve the state’s interest by bringing the Travellers into society? I suspect that the teaches do, but they have no wish to enter this political furnace. They’ve been burned too many times.

Before we leave, teachers warn us against talking of eviction in front of the children. The kids internalize everything and this translates into anxiety and tension in the class room. Spoken like people who care. Pity there aren’t more around like them.