Muslim schools offered cash to become state-run

 Add your view

Lessons: There are more than 100 private Muslim schools

Schools Secretary Ed Balls promised funds to take more than 100 private Muslim schools into the state sector to meet rising parental demand.

But there were immediate warnings that setting up new faith schools could backfire by increasing religious tensions. Opponents said it could entrench segregation and called them "plain madness".

And a Muslim leader admitted the biggest obstacle to the opening of new Islamic state schools was public fears that they would "produce fundamentalists".

Mr Balls said the schools could be a force for improving community relations and warned that minority religions currently did not have enough free faith school places.

The schools do not have to admit pupils of other religions if they are over-subscribed and can follow their own curriculum for RE lessons.

The Government argues that bringing private faith schools into the state system would give Ministers greater control over schools which largely operate behind closed doors.

A third of England's 21,000 state schools are faith schools but the vast majority are Anglican or Catholic. There are 37 Jewish, seven Muslim, two Sikh, one Greek Orthodox and one Seventh Day Adventist. A Hindu school is due to open next year.

Nearly 15,000 Muslim pupils and 11,000 Jewish ones are currently taught in feepaying faith schools.

Concerns have been raised that some private Islamic schools are failing to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain. The then head of education watchdog Ofsted, David Bell, suggested some posed a threat to social cohesion.

An Ofsted report on an independent Muslim school in Dewsbury found pupils were "not allowed to read newspapers or listen to radio or television programmes".

Promises: Ed Balls

It said Britain's segregated schools were a "ticking timebomb waiting to explode".

Ministers have placed a duty on all state schools - including faith schools - to explicitly promote harmonious community relations.

And they are encouraging faith groups to form alliances with other religions and run state schools together.

They also say that new academy schools sponsored by faith groups should set aside half of places for pupils of different denominations or none.

The plan to make it easier for faith groups to set up state schools is in a document published by Mr Balls and backed by the main faiths.

It vows to "remove unnecessary barriers to the creation of new faith schools" of any denomination.

Private faith schools would be offered cash to modernise and expand under the Government's £45billion school rebuilding programme.

Mr Balls said the programme would allow communities to take a "long term view".

"There are 115 or 116 independent Muslim schools and seven maintained Muslim schools. All of those seven have transferred into the maintained sector from the independent sector," he said.

"It should only happen if in the broadest sense the local community wants it. Where that is what the local community wants, it will provide the capital to make that possible."

Dr Mohamed Mukadam, chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools UK, said: "There is demand from the Muslim community for state faith schools but it will take time for this to develop.

"In the fullness of time, we will see many more."

But he said local Muslim groups ran into "a lot of negativity" when proposing to set up new schools because there was a "public perception" the schools would "produce fundamentalists".

The proposals have stirred controversy. LibDem MP Dr Evan Harris said: "If we have to have tax-funded faith schools then they should not be allowed to set religious tests for admissions and they must have religion-blind employment policies.

"Faith schools make existing racial segregation worse and when you adjust for social class their results are no better than community schools."

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, called the proposals "plain madness".

He said: "It is a sure-fire recipe for separation and future conflict to encourage children to think of themselves primarily as being of a particular religion, rather than encouraging them to concentrate on what we all have in common."

John Dunford, general secretary of headmasters' union ASCL, said: "The inherent danger of increasing the number of faith schools is that more schools will become monocultural and less able to promote inter-cultural understanding."

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter