‘Muslim Groups Impose Ideology in UK Schools’

Conservative Muslim school leaders in Britain’s second biggest city of Birmingham conducted an “organised campaign” to impose faith-based ideology on their pupils due to which “a culture of fear and intimidation” existed in some British schools, British Education Secretary, Michael Gove said on Monday. He said that all primary and secondary schools would be required to promote British values.

Gove was reporting the “deeply worrying” findings of two official investigations into the allegations of “an Islamic plot” to take over the leadership of the state funded schools in Birmingham in order to impose a religious agenda, reports say. A government investigation was launched after an anonymous letter reported a campaign dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse”, is reported to have found evidence of a tendency to impose Muslim cultural norms in some schools in the central city of Birmingham, said Michael Wilshaw, head of the Ofsted schools inspectorate. The investigation found that the campaign, who’s organizers were not named, aimed to alter the “character and ethos” of their schools by appointing members to school boards and staff who wanted to favour Muslim values.

In his nine-page report on twenty one schools sent to the Education Secretary, Wilshaw said that some schools had shirked their responsibility to protect children against religious extremism and raised concern about girls and boys being treated unequally. He cited examples of schools inviting guest speakers with known extremist views to address pupils and subsidising a trip to Saudi Arabia exclusively for Muslims.

Inspections by Ofsted, the schools watchdog, have landed five schools in the “special measures” category which meant that they failed to provide the adequate standard of education levels and could be closed if they do not improve. Senior managers and governors could also be dismissed.

interactive editor