Muslim children in state schools

I'm interested in the entry on state-funded Muslim education. My own opinion is that education that espouses only one world view - whether Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology or even (though I am one) atheism - should not be funded by the state. The author says Muslim children should get a balanced education. How can anyone get such a thing at a school that is avowedly 'for' only one religion or another? State-funded schools should all be non-denominational in my view. The balance should come in teaching kids about different theories of the world - so that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and so on are taught as simply different ways of looking at the world that you can either accept or not. I'm extremely unhappy at the idea of schools funded by the taxpayer doing otherwise. This isn't to be anti-Islam (although, it has to be said, as a theory of life on earth I'm not for it; which isn't the same as being prejudiced against individual Muslims) - it's to be pro-education. I'm quite happy, by contrast, for religions to run their own schools should they so wish, funded by themselves.

Muslim Children and Sex Education Muslim parents teach their children to respect their teachers. From a very young age, we are taught that Islam teaches us that after our parents, our teachers are most deserving of respect. It must be an extremely confusing time for the Muslim parent in Leytonstone, London. For up to 30 parents may face prosecution for withdrawing their children from school, disobeying the teachers in the school, simply to secure a decent moral upbringing for their children. The school had decided to have a week of lessons about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history. Part of this was a special adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet retitled Romeo and Julian as well as fairytales and stories changed to show men falling in love with men. Rather than filling the heads of impressionable boys and girls with fatuous drivel about gay penguins, schools should be ashamed of the fact that they are sending children out into the world barely able to read, write and add up properly. Muslim children are leaving schools without learning their cultural roots and linguistic skills. The action was being taken against the parents as part of a policy of ‘ promoting tolerance’. So why not tolerate parents, who, for sincerely-held reasons, consider their children too young to be taught about gay relationships? This isn’t education, its cultural fascism. A record numbers of pupils persistently played truant in 2006-07, with around 272,950 pupils persistently absent in 2007, missing more than 20% of school. We rarely see councils prosecute the parents of these persistent truants. Yet, the parents who removed their children as a one-off to protect their morality may be prosecuted! If the local council does decide to go through with a prosecution, it would be in line with the government’s approach to the Muslim community. Muslims who believe homosexuality is a sin would be labelled as extremists. Liberal totalitarianism is a growing phenomenon in Britain and the west in general but many people will be shocked that the school can override a parent’s view of what’s appropriate or inappropriate to teach their children. This latest episode should be a wakeup call for Muslim parents. Muslim parents MUST explain our moral standards to schools and be prepared to take steps to protect our children’s morals and values from a growing agenda to impose liberal values upon them. This is an eye opening for those Muslim parents who keep on sending their children to state schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers. The solution of all the problems facing Muslim children is state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. Those state schools where Muslim children are in majority may be designated as Muslim community schools. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Iftikhar Ahmad www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

I don’t know the ins and outs of the Leytonstone case, though I do know that these ‘political correctness gone mad’ stories are usually overstated and, if they prove to be correct, are shocking for their rarity. However, it’s still NOT an argument in favour of state-funded religious schools. If you want to bring your children up in a solely religious environment, then pay for it yourself. The concept of ‘liberal totalitariansm’ makes no sense and is just a hook to hang your own prejudices on. I would agree that four years old it too young to start teaching kids about gay relationships, but I’m also assuming that the author of the post below is unlikely to be tolerant of teaching anyone at any age that gay relationships are ok. What I do know is that kids have to learn about these things at some point, and I would far rather they were taught about it in the protective and inclusive environment of a non-denominational school than in a school run by the adherents of any religion that has shown it is intolerant of homosexuality. Just to end on: there’s one boy at my kids’ school who has two mums. The other children have got so used to this fact that no one really takes a blind bit of notice of the issue. The school also takes great care to teach the children about other cultures, countries and religions, and to teach them that they should be respected: I’m all for that. I wonder how successful state-funded religious schools are at doing that.