The Government will devote funding to an educational programme designed at tackling anti-Semitism at universities.

Working with the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), it hopes to show the dangers of ‘casual’ anti-Semitism and will offer suggestions on how to tackle the issue on campus.

The programme will be based on the Holocaust Educational Trust’s (HET) successful Lessons from Auschwitz project, which coordinates visits to the concentration camp for teachers and schoolchildren.

Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East, praised the announcement and said it was crucial that Jewish students were given support and protection.

He said: “We cannot allow prejudice and intolerance to be allowed to grow unchallenged in our educational institutions and I am very concerned by the proliferation of reports of racist incidents against Jewish students.

“It’s not only unfair and upsetting to those students, but it can very easily be the start of an escalation that leads to violence and hate crimes.

“The announcement is particularly significant as we join together to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day [on January 27], highlighting the importance of making an effort to educate and improve awareness of the Holocaust and the prejudices which are still faced by the Jewish population in the UK and the elsewhere.”

The £144,000 worth of funding was revealed by the Secretary of State for housing, communities and local government, Sajid Javid, who said everyone has a “duty” to speak out in memory of those who were killed during the Holocaust.

The Board of Deputies for British Jews thanked Mr Javid for his commitment and said it would go some way towards promoting education as a tool for tackling intolerance.

A spokesperson for the Board said: “The HET and UJS have been facilitating visits to former Nazi concentration camps for some years and with tangible effects, because the only way to fight prejudice is through education.

“This new funding will make a material difference by enabling students to learn about the tragedy of the Holocaust with their own eyes, which is the most effective means of education.”

At an all-party parliamentary group meeting last year, MPs heard how anti-Semitic symbols and slogans were far too commonplace at universities.

Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West, believes this programme will help counteract this and said it is important to promote tolerance in all aspects of life.

He said: “Our country feels more divided than at any other time since I was first elected to Parliament twenty years ago, and as a politician I take my responsibility to try to build consensus rather than entrench division extremely seriously.

“There is no starker reminder of the extremes to which such division can lead than the Holocaust, and I hope that this initiative will ensure that those terrible events are not forgotten, but serve as a reminder that we must always be vigilant against anti-Semitism.”