An Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Education
The British Government is planning to make it easier to schools to “opt in” to the state sector. This would allow more minority faith schools to recieve state funding. The Association of Muslim schools received £100,000 from the British government to make the transition smoother for more of the 120 independent Muslim schools. 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.

97% of Muslim pupils are in state schools. There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion all such schools may be converted to Muslim community schools, manage and control by Muslim educational Trusts or Charities. State funded Muslim schools make sense. 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. 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.

The national school systems of social democratic countries such as Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are based on the principle that children can choose schools in either the state or independent sector funded by the taxpayers. CRE chairman stepped up his campaign to segregate black school boys to raise their academic achievement. 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