Bilingual Muslims children have a right, as much as any other faith group, to be taught their culture, languages and faith. alongside a mainstream curriculum. Rejecting faith schools as "anti-democratic" or "divisive" is simply the wrong approach to take.
Compulsory state education has promised to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, physical and academic development of a child in preparation for adult life - has failed far too many children, particularly national minorities and especially Muslim childldren. Now the time has come that parents and community should take over the running of their local schools The Local Authority's role should be confined to simply ensuring schools operate within the prevailing legislative framework (admissions criteria, Special Educational Needs, Community Cohesion, Financial Audit, etc). Parents can perform a better job than the Local Authority because parents have a genuine vested interest – namely the best educational outcome for their children. The Local Authority simply cannot be trusted.
There is no end to Forced marriages and honour killings as long as Bilingual Muslim girls keep on attending state schools with notoriously monolingul non-Muslim teachers. Muslim schools are attractive to Muslim parents because they have better discipline and teaching Islamic values. Bilingual Muslim teachers are role models who understand the needs and demands of their children.
Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teahers as role models during their development period. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
No body has the right to tell a woman how to dress, or worse, how to undress? Let her wear what she likes, especially if it's part of her religion. I see the banning of headscarves or niqabs as an attack on both religious freedom and on the rights of women & girls. In the United Kingdom, there is a social and economic pressure of Muslim women not to cover themselves with headscraf or a veil.
Each and every Muslim child should be in a state funded Muslim school with bilingual Muslim teachers as role model during their developmental periods. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.
Bilingual Muslim children need to learn and be well versed in standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. At the same time they need to learn and be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages inorder to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry.
A Muslim is a citizen of this global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit.
There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools.
Muslim children are in majority because native parents remove their children as soon as they find that the number of Muslim children is on the increase. They do not want their children to mix with Muslim or any other migrant children
Iftikhar Ahmad
London School of Islamics Trust
63 Margery Park Road LOndon E7 9LD
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk