Children from minority groups,
especially the Muslims, are exposed to the pressure of racism, multiculturalism
and bullying. They suffer academically, culturally and linguistically: a high
proportion of children of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are leaving British
schools with low grades or no qualification.
Stop treating foreigners like garbage and they will stop ruining your precious
country. Why did you let them in in the first place if you didn't want them
here? They left everything in their countries because of your promises. Are you
so anxious to please that you can't say "no"? I would love to see you go to a
foreign land where you don't have any friends, you don't even know anyone and
you don't speak the language, and start from scratch. I would just LOVE to watch
you do that. Let them integrate and stop segregating them. What I want is people
being nice to each other. I don't care about race.
The problems of racism in the school system and wider society are permanent
features of Western society and will become more entrenched and
institutionalised. On this basis it is time to build a new kind of education,
which can equip students with the necessary instrumental skills to participate
in society; that does not prejudice experience of Muslim young people; and one
that critically engages with the endemic racism present in British society.
Developing an education from a Muslim critical perspective can be a part of
mounting a significant challenge to the racism that lies at the heart of British
society.
Muslim schools teach Muslim children that sex outside marriage is a sin.
Homosexuality is also a sin. Sex before marriage and homosexuality are western
values and Muslims are not supposed to adopt them.
British values, which are said to include respect for legally protected
characteristics such as homosexuality, religion, gender change, disability, race
and marital status. what a warping of British values, the British values I was
taught are respect for the institution of marriage, freedom of religious
pursuit, freedom of speech, respect for the monarch. respect for others.
I would like to know, from Mr Gove, what is being done to investigate the school
inspector who failed to observe, report and prevent the take over of these
schools? Lee Donaghy, the assistant principal of Birmingham's Park View School
which was placed in special measures over fears children were at risk of
radicalisation, said many of the concerns over Muslim extremists were 'plain old
Islamophobia'. It was clear from remarks made by Muslims involved in the running
of the schools that they were just continuing during school hours the culture
that children were living in for the rest of the time, and where 95% of the
pupils were Muslim it seemed only natural to do so. The whole 'Trojan Horse'
thing reminds me of the Satanic Abuse scandal, which turned out to be a load of
paranoid rubbish. Is there any evidence for it at all? Looks like an excuse to
spread nationalist dogma into schools. The British government is advertising
hatred and disgust for foreigners with many of its policies and the attitude of
the press is also very unhelpful... I do not know where they think this will
lead us to.
Lack of evidence about what happened at the 'Trojan Horse' school. Maybe some
bad things happened but there is hardly evidence of Homophobia or fascism. If
there was, then local authority oversight (like in non-academy schools) would
probably have stopped it. This whole debate is designed to get Gove off the
hook. Remind me again how many public schools are single-sex? Including the ones
attended by our current cabinet, perhaps? All Cameron is trying to do is stop
Islamists taking over schools & using the curriculum to brainwash kids
impressionable minds with religious mumbo jumbo that bares little resemblance to
reality, science & fact. Teaching unions seem unbothered by this creeping
Islamisation of our schools. Today's 'British' values are totally based on
privateering and profiteering. When I hear Cameron spouting vapid platitudes
about 'British values' I wonder does he mean his own superficial and
election-rigging slogans, or his efforts to portray the tiny clique of fellow
frat boys' aspirations as somehow 'British'? Whatever, nothing he has done has
any resemblance to anything recognisable as 'British' values. Why have Gove and
Cameron started to talk about how they want schools to teach British values?
Because of the Ofsted investigation into schools in Birmingham. They mean "we
have to make clear that the values that were being taught in those schools are
not British values". It would really be better if they said "values of modern
Western liberal democracy" but I suppose they think that doesn't make a very
good sound bite. Ask those in Guantanamo Bay what they think of democracy and
respect for the rule of law. All values are relative, and used to suit those in
power.
I set up the first Muslim school in London in 1981. Now there are 188 Muslim
schools and only 28 are state funded. I would like to see each and every Muslim
child in a state funded Muslim schools with Muslim teachers. I hope one day my
dream would come true.
When the government unveiled its plans for schools in England, the headlines
were taken by the controversy over grammars.
But there was another shift in policy which would make it easier for an increase
in faith-based free schools.
This was presented in the context of allowing more Catholic schools, with Prime
Minister Theresa May commending them for high achievement often in areas of
deprivation.
And, she said, "there is growing demand for them".
But expanding faith schools will not be limited to one religion or denomination.
And in terms of "growing demand", one of the biggest gaps must be for Muslim
faith schools.
There are more than 6,800 faith schools in the state school system - but only 28
of them are Muslim, with two more in the pipeline.
In terms of the Muslim population, estimated at 2.7 million and with a third
aged 15 or under, the number of Muslim state schools is disproportionately
small.
But the absence of Muslim schools in the state sector does not mean that there
are not Muslim schools - it means most of them are low-cost private schools.
Even further away from public scrutiny are an unknown number of entirely
unregulated, unregistered schools.
There have been repeated warnings from Ofsted over the past year about the risks
posed by such illegal schools.
Would such places exist if there were more Muslim schools in the state sector?
Farhan Adam is head of the Madani schools in Leicester, one for girls and one
for boys, and he says that for every pupil getting a place, another four have to
be turned away.
These are part of the state system and he is applying to open another two Muslim
free schools, to meet unmet parental demand.
He is worried about where some Muslim pupils end up being taught, saying they
could be in places "where there are safeguarding issues and questions about
radicalisation and extremism".
There are also seem to be pupils entirely "missing from the system".
Mr Adam says Muslim state schools are able to provide a bridge between parents
who want a religious ethos and the need for a good quality education in a place
that is safe.
Within a state school, he says teachers can make sure that young people have a
proper understanding of their religion and how it is compatible with living in a
diverse, modern society.
The threat of radicalisation comes from young people going online by themselves
and getting a "warped version", he says.
Ghulam Abbas, an education consultant and former Department for Education
official, says there is a need for more Muslim state schools - but the quality
is more important than the quantity.
He says that in the past, applications for Muslim free schools have been turned
down because too much attention was paid to the religious aspect and not enough
to the quality of education.
The lack of Muslim schools so far has been about a lack of expertise in the
community in running successful schools, he says.
But he says a new generation of outstanding and outward looking Muslim state
schools could be a positive answer to the problem of Muslim youngsters with a
"poor understanding of their faith" and who are vulnerable to radicalisation.
The east London schoolgirls who headed off to Syria were not in faith schools
and the schools caught up in the Trojan Horse claims did not have a religious
affiliation.
But if ministers want to have more Muslim schools inside the fold of the state
system, there will be accusations of segregation and cultural isolation.
"Opening up more Muslim faith schools will be divisive - risking further harm to
integration by fuelling religious and ethnic segregation," says Stephen Evans of
the National Secular Society.
"Schools paid for out of public money should be inclusive schools where all
children are educated together, irrespective of their faith backgrounds."
If there are problems with independent Muslim schools, he says the answer is "to
better regulate the independent sector, not to open up more Muslim faith schools
in the state sector".
Mr Evans also says that even if Muslim parents had an option of a faith school,
many would still prefer to send their children to a non-religious school.
It's also the case that some Muslim families choose to send their children to
other types of faith school. There are Catholic schools where changing
demographics mean that a majority of pupils are Muslim.
There is a big philosophical dividing point here. England's education system has
traditionally had strong links with religious groups and been open to
incorporating the religions of new arrivals. This is very unlike a system such
as France, which has remained staunchly secular.
But which works for integration?
By international standards, measured by the OECD, England's schools are
successful. In fact, they're very unusual in that the children of migrants are
more likely to go to university than children of native parents.
The OECD has also measured how much the children of migrants feel as though they
belong in the host country.
And the country with the lowest sense of "belonging" in their schools is among
migrant families in France.