Free Our Schools

[Iftikhar]

Free Our Schools
Almost all children now believe they go to school to pass exams. The idea that they may be there for an education is irrelevant. State schools have become exam factories, interested only in A to C Grades. They do not educate children. Exam results do not reflect a candidate’s innate ability. Employers have moaned for years that too many employees cannot read or write properly. According to a survey, school-leavers and even graduates lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. More and more companies are having to provide remedial training to new staff, who can’t write clear instructions, do simple maths, or solve problems. Both graduates and school-leavers were also criticised for their sloppy time-keeping, ignorance of basic customer service and lack of self-discipline.

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. More faith schools will be opened under sweeping reforms of the education system in England. There is a dire need for the growth of state funded Muslim schools to meet the growing needs and demands of the Muslim parents and children. Now the time has come that parents and community should take over the running of their local schools. Parent-run schools will give the diversity, the choice and the competition that the wealthy have in the private sector. Parents can perform a better job than the Local Authority because parents have a genuine vested interest. The Local Authority simply cannot be trusted.

The British Government is planning to make it easier to schools to “opt out” from the Local Authorities. Muslim children in state schools feel isolated and confused about who they are. This can cause dissatisfaction and lead them into criminality, and the lack of a true understanding of Islam can ultimately make them more susceptible to the teachings of fundamentalists like Christians during the middle ages and Jews in recent times in Palestine. Fundamentalism is nothing to do with Islam and Muslim; you are either a Muslim or a non-Muslim.

There are hundreds of state primary and secondary schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion all such schools may be opted out to become Muslim Academies. This mean the Muslim children will get a decent education. Muslim schools turned out balanced citizens, more tolerant of others and less likely to succumb to criminality or extremism. Muslim schools give young people confidence in who they are and an understanding of Islam’s teaching of tolerance and respect which prepares them for a positive and fulfilling role in society. Muslim schools are attractive to Muslim parents because they have better discipline and teaching Islamic values. Children like discipline, structure and boundaries. Bilingual Muslim children need Bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods, who understand their needs and demands.

None of the British Muslims convicted following the riots in Bradford and Oldham in 2001 or any of those linked to the London bombings had been to Islamic schools. An American Think Tank studied the educational back ground of 300 Jihadists; none of them were educated in Pakistani Madrasas. They were all Western educated by non-Muslim teachers. Bilingual Muslim children need bilingual Muslim teachers as role models. A Cambridge University study found that single-sex classes could make a big difference for boys. They perform better in single-sex classes. The research is promising because male students in the study saw noticeable gains in the grades. The study confirms the Islamic notion that academic achievement is better in single-sex classes.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

[Ramadan90]

The education system has failed us students. People cannot read and no; I dont mean reading in the sense of putting words together which results in more or less complex sentences. I mean reading for understanding and not only for information. We have been deeply indoctrinated with this useless ideas of what learning is.

[Aprender]

There is a dire need for the growth of state funded Muslim schools to meet the growing needs and demands of the Muslim parents and children.

I'm not so sure I agree with opening more state-funded Muslim schools. With that money comes conditions that must be fulfilled and you might not be able to do everything that you want to do given that the state would still control somewhat of the curriculum/rules that are attached to money given out by the state.

In some localities, you might not have enough students of one gender or another and the state could call for the combination of one all boys and all girls school which if your aim is for an Islamic schooling environment then this could defeat the purpose.

Why aren't Muslims seeking out other options for private funding to build more Islamic schools in Western lands so children have other options? NYU did it in Dubai. They had the UAE pay to construct a campus over there so they could provide a Middle Eastern study abroad option for their students at the main campus in NY.

I think at this point we need to break away from depending on kaffir government systems to support and fund schools educating Muslim youth as the non-Muslim tax payers wouldn't look too fondly on their money going to build a Muslim school. If their children aren't going there, they wouldn't see how that benefits them or their society at large even though there are some good arguments out there. They wouldn't understand it. I agree that there need to bring more Muslim schooling options for parents and children living here in Western lands but I disagree with going through the state to fund them.