Thousands of pupils at schools in Glasgow who have difficulty with English have no specialist classroom help.

In a report, officials at Glasgow City Council revealed about 30% of the 9500 children whose parents are migrant workers, asylum seekers or refugees are not getting the support required.

The problem has arisen because of the rapid rise in the numbers involved - 3000 foreign national children have enrolled in schools since 2005 from more than 100 countries speaking 86 languages.

The council employs 140 specialist staff at a cost of over £5m, but resources for support services have not been increased in recent years.

Officials have called on the Scottish Government to provide extra money and the council has drawn up plans to re-organise its services. A report outlining the changes will go to the council's executive committee on Friday.

The report states: "The distribution of bilingual teachers is inequitable and not a good use of council staffing resources."

The plans suggest allocating staff to the New Learning Communities under which social work, education and health services are organised - and then deployed to respond to local needs.

Gordon Matheson, education spokesman for Glasgow City Council, said: "We need to change how we allocate and organise this service to better meet recent population changes in this increasingly diverse city."

Willie Hart, secretary of the Glasgow branch of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said: "This service should not be taken forward by redistributing current resources alone, but by considerable investment.

"Additional funding has to come from the Scottish Government."