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Minister stands up for popular teacher's bid to stay in Britain
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor08.06.09
An "irreplaceable" language teacher who is fighting deportation by the Home Office has won the support of a government minister.
Farhan Zakaria, who taught French and Bengali at the Sarah Bonnell School in Stratford, is due to be sent back to Bangladesh - where he has spent less than five years of his life - after being refused leave to remain in Britain and losing a succession of appeals.
The Home Office insists he has been living in London unlawfully since 2000 after the visa on which he and his family entered Britain expired.
But Mr Zakaria's constituency MP, Stephen Timms, has intervened, praising the 28-year-old as "a unique asset" and calling on immigration minister Phil Woolas to override the rules.
Mr Timms, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, has written to Mr Woolas to say Mr Zakaria was a valuable teacher at the specialist language college for girls until the Home Office's declaration forced his dismissal.
He said his departure was a "serious blow" to the school's efforts to raise pupils' achievement.
"Mr Zakaria was a unique asset because he was a UK qualified - and very good - French teacher and also an excellent Bengali teacher," Mr Timms wrote. "The school feels his loss very deeply. Would it be possible to reconsider granting Mr Zakaria leave to remain so that he can return to his important and successful work?"
Today Mr Zakaria, whose case was reported last year by the Evening Standard, said he was "more optimistic" of staying and that Mr Timms's intervention was a crucial boost.
"He is a high-level minister and he understands my value to the school. It's still difficult to live without a job but I am more hopeful now and think that there might be some progress," he said.
Mr Zakaria, who lives in Forest Gate, came to Britain in 1996 when his father, Mohammed, worked at the Bangladesh High Commission in London.
Their visa expired when his father left his job in November 2000, but Mr Zakaria remained, as did his father, 59, mother Shaheara, 49, and brother Yahya, 31.
An immigration tribunal and an appeals panel said Mr Zakaria should have applied for a new visa in 2000, but he insists he did not realise his visa was not indefinite.
