Britain Debates State Aid for Muslim Schooling

By Eric Pfanner

If education is the great equalizer, education policy must be one of the biggest dividing lines. Nowhere is that more true than in Britain, where a debate is raging over the government’s desire to bring more Muslim schools into the state-funded education sector.

Reflecting policy influences from the United States, Prime Minister Tony Blair has made parental choice a key pillar of his education policy, moving to give families the option of sending their children to a secular state school or a faith-based one. Religious schools that accept state financing can open their doors for free to students whose families could not afford expensive private-school fees. It is a policy option that might seem unthinkable in, say, France, where church-state separation in education remains paramount.

There are more than 7,000 faith-based schools in Britain, mostly run by the Church of England or the Catholic church, with a handful of Jewish schools. Many receive state funding; in turn, they must teach the national curriculum and run a nondiscriminatory admissions policy.

Britain now has more than 100 Muslim schools, mainly in London and the cities of the central and northern industrial heartland with large immigrant populations.

Some state-funded Muslim schools have strong academic records. Feversham College, a Muslim girl’s secondary school in Bradford,recently topped the national charts in a category measuring improvements in student performances. Since the terrorist attacks on the London Underground on July 7, however, Islamic schools have come under scrutiny from critics who say they foster divisions in society. Some social scientists suggest that alienation from modern British culture might be a factor encouraging some to seek martyrdom as suicide bombers. “Do we want a ghettoized education system?” the newspaper The Guardian quoted Barry Sheerman, a British legislator who chairs a parliamentary committee on education, as saying. “Schools play a crucial role in integrating different communities and the growth of faith schools poses a real threat to this.”

Muhammad Mukadam, chairman of the Muslim schools’ association, denies that Islamic education fosters separatism. He noted that none of the young men believed to be linked to the July 7 bombings had attended Muslim schools in Britain, though they might have done so elsewhere.

“If there are real issues that are of concern to society, then we will look at those issues,” he said. “State schools have shown that they can create good citizens of this society.”

The government is expected to issue a new set of education proposals by the end of the year. The rationale for expanding Islamic education within the state sector appears to be twofold. Bringing schools into the state sector, rather than keeping them out, to be financed by Islamic charities and other groups, might help their integration into broader British society. Also, demand for places at state-funded Muslim schools can be extremely high, reflecting the attraction of state funding and the belief that faith schools are likely to offer better education than ordinary state schools in inner city areas.

The Islamia Schools group in London, set up in 1983 by Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, often has several thousand applicants for only a handful of available places. Islamia, which entered the state system in 1998, is open to both sexes and all ages from primary school to pre-university, and has children from more than 20 national origins among its students.

“Muslim schools are incredibly multicultural, incredibly multinational,” said Claire Tinker, who has studied the issue for a doctoral thesis at Cardiff University in Wales.

“The idea that Muslim students are being segregated ignores the incredible diversity within the Muslim population in Britain,” Tinker said.

The government is helping private Muslim schools to join the state system by providing preliminary funding for the process. Two schools recently won approval, including the Leicester Islamic Academy, headed by Mukadam.

For some schools, the switch means big changes in teaching and governance. As well as having to teach the national curriculum, teachers at state-funded schools must be certified, and state- funded schools, unlike private ones, must allow community members to sit on their governing boards. Blending a broad-based education with the influence of Islam, state-funded Muslim schools attract families who want their children to succeed in a global economy, said Shenaz Yusuf, a spokeswoman for the Muslim Council of Britain. “Parents want their children to have a good education that will give them a good footing for the wider world, but at the same time balance that with an environment that makes them comfortable with their exposure to social influences.”