First Islamic School Opens in Belgium

Text of report by Belgian newspaper De Standaard website on 28 August

[Report by Pieter Lesaffer and Corry Hancke: "Islamic School Begins Enrolment"]

Brussels -In Molenbeek, students can enroll at the Avicenna Islamic school. The private school is not recognized and receives no subsidies. In order to obtain a certificate, the students have to take an examination before the examining board.

Respect and discipline. Those are two values which the Avicenna school imparts. The posters of the French-speaking school hang at windows of the building beside the Al-Khalil mosque in Molenbeek. If all goes well, it will begin as early as September with the first and second years of secondary education.

The news that there would be an Islamic school had been circulating for a while. Yesterday, the school’s organizers could not be reached.

Avicenna is to be -in theory at least -a school for girls and boys, for Muslims and non-Muslims.

Avicenna was a 10th century Iranian philosopher who believed that eastern and western philosophy could go together perfectly. Because the school is new, and hence not recognized, the certificates which the school will award have no official value. The posters on the school state that the students will be prepared for the examination of the French Community’s central examining board.

The school also receives no subsidies, and so the students have to pay an enrolment fee. It would be a matter of 1,800 euros. In this first year, the school is apparently offering places to 40 students, who will be divided into two probationary classes.

The Islamic Platform League is the driving force behind the school. According to its press release, it in no way intends to create a ghetto school. It intends to prepare the students for taking an active place in society, and it intends to insure equal opportunities for emancipation for all students.

Many people believe that the school intends to meet the educational needs of girls who wish to wear a headscarf. In most Brussels schools, a headscarf is taboo. Avicenna’s poster talks quite clearly, anyway, about the respect for Islam which is to the fore.

“The Al-Khalil mosque is Islamist,” says Johan Leman of the Brussels Foyer integration centre, which is based in Molenbeek. “It employs a conservative interpretation of the Koran, and adopts rigid stances as far as matters of faith are concerned. The imam wishes push through Islam as far as possible if democracy permits that.” Leman believes that the community’s model of society can best be compared with that of the orthodox Jews in Antwerp -very strictly religious, but certainly not militant.

Leman does wonder which Moroccan parents in Molenbeek can fork out 1,800 euros for their children’s education, even if that sum can be paid in monthly instalments of 150 euros. The Al-Khalil mosque itself is wealthy, and has considerable assets. Will it perhaps award the students scholarships?

Leman believes that the discipline and the respect which the school preaches -as well as the permission to wear a headscarf – could be a reason for Moroccan parents to send their children to the Avicenna school. Many parents are trying to impart the Islamic values to their children and protect them against the attraction of the criminal gangs and drugs. They deem it important that their sons in particular receive such an education in order to find a good job easily later.

Therefore Johan Leman is not concerned about the advent of the school. “If they have good teachers who give the students such an education, I can see no problems,” he says.

In the case of our northern neighbours, 43 Islamic elementary schools and two secondary schools have been recognized. It emerged from a report from the Dutch schools inspectorate earlier this year that there was a problem of quality in a quarter of those schools. For that reason, three of them have now lost their subsidies.

Originally published by De Standaard website, Groot-Bijgaarden, in Dutch 28 Aug 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring European. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.