Islamic schools are threat to national identity, says Ofsted

[LDNgirl]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...445275,00.html

By Tony Halpin, Education Editor - January 18, 2005

THE rise of Islamic schools is a potential threat to Britain’s sense of national identity, the head of Ofsted said yesterday.
David Bell said that Muslim and other faith schools outside the state system were teaching a narrow curriculum that failed to prepare children for life in a multicultural democracy.

He called on the Government to monitor the significant growth of independent religious schools to ensure that their pupils learnt “the wider tenets of British society”.

“We must not allow our recognition of diversity to become apathy in the face of any challenge to our coherence as a nation,” Mr Bell, the Chief Inspector of Schools in England, said.

Muslim leaders accused Mr Bell of Islamophobia.

Mr Bell said that parents had a right to pay for a faith-based education for their children but that the State also had the right to set “certain expectations of what will be done there”.

“Crucial to that is being aware of the political institutions in society, of being part of a democracy, of other faiths. In some of the Muslim schools that is not happening to a sufficient degree,” he said.

The chief inspector’s comments came in a lecture at the Hansard Society in London on citizenship education, which he said required schools to consider “what it means to be British”.

His annual report next month would show a near doubling in the number of independent faith schools to about 300, compared with 170 in 2003. They included more than 100 Muslim schools and about 100 run by evangelical Christian groups.

“Faith should not be blind. I worry that many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society,” he said. “This growth in faith schools needs to be carefully but sensitively monitored by government to ensure that pupils receive an understanding of not only their own faith but of other faiths and the wider tenets of British society,” Mr Bell said.

The Ofsted chief called on Muslim schools to reform their curriculums so that pupils “acquire an appreciation of and respect for other cultures in a way that promotes tolerance and harmony”.

He said that the Association of Muslim Schools was working to support schools more effectively in this.

Mr Bell said the issue had been brought into focus as all schools were now required to show that pupils were given a broad understanding of public institutions and services in England.

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that it was astonishing that Mr Bell had singled out Muslim schools when only 3 per cent of Muslim children attended them. “The issue of community cohesion and coherence is of paramount importance for the whole nation. But we consider it highly irresponsible to suggest that the growth of Muslim faith schools poses a threat to ‘our coherence as a nation’,” he said.

Mohamad Mukadam, chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools, accused Mr Bell of Islamophobia. Dr Mukadam, who is also principal of Leicester Islamic Academy, which has 700 pupils aged 5 to 16, said: “I challenge him to come up with evidence that Muslim schools are not preparing young people for life in British society. I think it’s a misconception of Islamic schools and a further example of Islamophobia. For a person in his position to make such a generalised comment just beggars belief.”

[HOUDA-K]

Assalam Alaikoum ~Z~

I read this article this morning, and what a load of hogwash comments from Bell.. Religious schools do not harm social solidity, why are Muslim Schools being picked on and not Jewish Schools or Christian Schools I wonder.

Wa Salam

[_nadia_]

I can understand what he's saying about some of the curriculum being "narrow" in certain areas, but that's purely because the government doesn't offer enough assistance to these faith schools as it does to CoE or community schools!!
Frankly speaking, the Islamic schools fare the worst. Why? Simple put - lack of funding. Jewish nurseries and faith schools do a lot better because they are better funded and have better facilities open to them.

And how is sending your child to a faith school not helping your child get a sense of community or whatever nonsense the journalist said?? Please.....it's blatantly just another attack on muslims, and I'm *not* being biased.

[LDNgirl]

Wa alaikum assalam sisters,

I totally agree! It is this ongoing issue of the lack of integration and solitude of the Muslims that people on the outside perceive as "Muslim Alienation", thus creating all the suicide bombers By their reasoning if we eliminate the faith school AKA Suicide Bomber Training Camps, they will get rid of the problem.

I hate the way everything is aimed at muslims when talking about faith. The article is about faith schools, but was centred at Muslims?!?!? Why is it alright for Jews to have their schools and not us. I use this example as I went to school in Stamford Hill. In the space of a Square mile, there were about 15 - 20 jewish schools, from nurseries to colleges. These were located on massive premises, and had some amazing facilites. If there was ever an example of a well-founded, well run set of schools it was them. Just half a mile up the road was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Muslim school, set up by a brother not wanting his children to mix with the trash in Hackney. He set this up from his house, and he litterally conducted lessons from his back-yard. He applied for a grant to buy the house next door from the LEA to expand the school to facilitate secondary education - refused! Whilst the Jewish school two minutes down the road recieved a £45k grant to improve their ICT facilities!

It's pure hipocracy. Why is it OK for children to sing about Jesus, to cross their hearts, eat bread to signify the body of Christ and drink Ribena to signify the blood of crist, to attend church during school hours at primary school... creating an atmosphere of Christianity dominating in that particular school... and not the same for other children?

It is a fact that faith schools are the best scoring on the league tables in the UK. So what is the problem?

[Khalidz]

Salamma3likoum All,

We really have to stand up and fight this wallah...Jews are ruling the world, their masterplan is planning out to be a success

If only us muslims stuck together and helped one another...things could be so much different...

Allah y hdeena...ameen!

[_thetruth]

Salam
If the Idiot stated what is wrong with certain schools then We should accept it who would not? but no he come up and say that Muslim schools are the problem I find that to be a racist islamophobic statement from a Zionist
No menton of the so many Jewish or Hindu schools and hang on what about the catholic ones?
**** is **** as always

[voltaires_priest]

I think we should either allow all varieties of faith school - or else allow none at all and insist that they are all multicultural comprehensives where everybody learns about each other's religion.


V