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Free Our Schools

For discussions related to education and educational institutions.
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IftikharA
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Free Our Schools

#1 Post by IftikharA » December 29th, 2014, 10:06 pm

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.

Indiscipline, incivility, binge drinking, drug addiction, gun and knife crimes, teenage pregnancies and abortion are part and parcel of British schooling. These are the reasons why majority of Muslim parents would like to send their children to Muslim schools with Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. Only less than 5% attend Muslim schools and more than 95% keep on attending state and church schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.

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.

None of 7/7 bombers and British Muslim youths who are in Syria and Iraq are the product of Muslim schools. They are the product of British schooling which is the home of institutional racism with chicken racist native teachers. It is absurd to believe that Muslim schools, Imams and Masajid teach Muslim children anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-western views. It is dangerously deceptive and misleading to address text books and discuss them out of their historical, cultural and linguistic context. It is not wrong to teach children that Jews are committing the same cruelty in Palestine what German did to them before or during Second World War. It is not wrong to teach children that anti-social behaviour, drinking, drugs, homosexuality, sex before marriage, teenage pregnancies and abortions are western values and Islam is against all such sins. This does not mean that Muslim schools teach children to hate westerners, Jews and homosexuals.

The demand for Muslim schools comes from parents who want their children a safe environment with an Islamic ethos. Parents see Muslim schools where children can develop their Islamic Identity where they won't feel stigmatised for being Muslims and they can feel confident about their faith. Muslim schools are working to try to create a bridge between communities. There is a belief among ethnic minority parents that the British schooling does not adequately address their cultural needs. Failing to meet this need could result in feeling resentment among a group who already feel excluded. Setting up Muslim school is a defensive response. State schools with monolingual teachers are not capable to teach English to bilingual Muslim children. Bilingual teachers are needed to teach English to such children along with their mother tongue. According to a number of studies, a child will not learn a second language if his first language is ignored.

The West has never been at ease with Islam since the Crusades. It is unfortunate that huge oil supplies lie under the Arabian Deserts. It is the West that stirred the trouble that led to 9/11. That attack was a desperate act of by men prepared to lose their life. We need to get to grips on who is the terrorist? On 24 November 1963, Lyndon Johnson said, “the battle against communism… must be joined… with strength and determination. Some three million lives were lost in the consequential battles. The US had to pull out due to Public Opinion. Communism lived on. So who was the terrorist?

The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. Race trouble is being predicted by the Daily Express, because of an ethnic boom in UK major cities. Muslim communities need imams for the solutions of their needs and demands in their own native languages. Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit.

Terrorism and sexual grooming is nothing to do with Masajid, Imams and Muslim schools. Those Muslim youths who have been involved in terrorism and sexual grooming are the product of western education system which makes a man stupid, selfish and corrupt. They find themselves cut off from their cultural heritage, literature and poetry. They suffer from identity crises and I blame British schooling.

The shocking level of targeting of the Muslim community of Birmingham is indicative of the normalisation of the dehumanisation of the Muslims of Britain. Under the pretext of "extremism", criminal undemocratic and unethical abuse of public institutions and the Muslims of the UK can occur without much accountability. This pervasive attitude, especially amongst officials like Michael Gove needs to change. Our schools are truly trying to develop our children to do well at schools so later in life they are able to stand on their own two feet, but if we stop our schools from doing this than our country will have up rise of unemployment, benefit issues, crime levels high, I think its time for you apologize and allow practitioners to do their job right.
IA
http;//www,londonschoolofislamics,org,uk

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getreal
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Joined: November 20th, 2008, 5:40 pm

Re: Free Our Schools

#2 Post by getreal » December 29th, 2014, 10:09 pm

De javu.
"It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on his head"-Tyrion Lannister.

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Alan H
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: Free Our Schools

#3 Post by Alan H » December 29th, 2014, 10:32 pm

The same old zombie arguments, but at least he can't advertise his website.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Dave B
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Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: Free Our Schools

#4 Post by Dave B » December 30th, 2014, 9:35 am

Alan H wrote:The same old zombie arguments, but at least he can't advertise his website.
Ah, I wondered about that since the link is visible - then I clicked on it for the first time.

:D

I know that there are circumstances where thumping the same tub and flooding the world with propaganda for years can work - but I doubt that this is so in this case.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: Free Our Schools

#5 Post by Alan H » December 30th, 2014, 9:53 am

Dave B wrote:
Alan H wrote:The same old zombie arguments, but at least he can't advertise his website.
Ah, I wondered about that since the link is visible - then I clicked on it for the first time.
:wink: It won't get picked up by search engines, so does his website rating no favours at all. The same text everywhere will look like spamming to them.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: Free Our Schools

#6 Post by Alan H » January 1st, 2015, 5:18 pm

One for Iftikhar: Government's obsession with faith and free schools 'breeds social and racial segregation'
Segregation between different classes and ethnicities in Britain is worsening due to increasing numbers of faith schools and the opening of free schools, a leading campaigner on social equality has warned.

Matthew Taylor, the respected chair of the Social Integration Commission, called on governors to issue regular reports on how their pupils are mixing to prevent serious divisions in society – saying that Muslim schools were of particular concern as their intakes tend to be less diverse.

Arguing that schools were largely failing to bring different communities together in contrast to higher education, the former adviser to Tony Blair told The Independent that the Government must take responsibility.

There had been “a certain amount of carelessness” in schools policy, he said, amid a “sense that the really important thing is that we have more schools and more faith schools and more free schools”.

“If you were in the Department for Education [DfE] and said, ‘A lot of these schools are not terribly integrated places’, you’d have been brushed aside and told, ‘Well that’s not actually a priority and that’s not the important thing, the important thing is that we have got more of these institutions’,” he said.

“It’s more by negligence than anything, I don’t think that the Government has deliberately promoted segregation but I think sometimes it pursues policies which are anti-integration and it isn’t sufficiently aware of that.”

Social segregation is already costing the British economy £6bn a year, recent research from the Commission has found. The study showed Britons increasingly seek the company only of those most like themselves, with profound consequences.

The resulting drop in social mobility and increased isolation between groups means that problems are emerging in areas from employment to health, costing the UK the equivalent of 0.5 per cent of GDP.

The Social Integration Commission, whose panel members also include the Wellington College headmaster Anthony Seldon, former Equalities and Human Rights Commission chair Trevor Phillips, and Oxford University psychologist Professor Miles Hewstone, was set up by The Challenge charity to report on how the UK can improve its record for social mobility and inter-community contact.

Experts cite schools as one of the best places to foster social integration, but Mr Taylor believes this opportunity is often being missed.

Matthew Taylor, chair of the Social Integration Commission Matthew Taylor, chair of the Social Integration Commission (Teri Pengilley)
“Colleges and universities are pretty good at mixing people but schools aren’t very good at mixing people,” he said. “That’s for two reasons, firstly because schools are too divided in their intake and not enough is being done to overcome that.

“Secondly, even when the kids do arrive in the school, very often the schools don’t pay sufficient attention to the fact that there are very, very different groups in the playground and they don’t attend to the need to bring them together.”

He added: “One of the ways in which we should be preparing young people for the world in which they’re going to live is getting them used to and relaxed about mixing with people from different classes, different ages and different ethnicities.”

He cautioned that without action on integration, Britain’s society would be characterised by “ugly” divisions.

“Britain’s becoming more diverse and if we don’t think about this and we’re not willing to act on it, the danger is that we’ll become more separate…. There’ll be far too many places which feel like they’re just for the well-off and far too many places which feel like they’re just for the poor; there’ll be far too many schools which feel like they’re just for one minority group or just for one social class.”

Muslim faith schools were singled out by Mr Taylor as having a particular problem. “We have to recognise that Muslim faith schools seem to be much more monocultural than Catholic faith schools or Church of England faith schools.

“It’s a very difficult policy because if you have Catholic and Church of England faith schools you can’t really deny the need for Muslim faith schools, but there is a different character, they tend to be much less diverse.”

He said he does not advocate banning faith schools, but believes they should be more carefully checked for their integration efforts.

“You can’t deny people’s desire for faith schools if you support faith schools. What you can do is to really demand that those schools demonstrate that they are actively working to connect with other schools of other faiths and no faith.

“I would be very strict about saying those schools have got to demonstrate that they are making real efforts to ensure that the children in those schools who are now spending 9am till 3.30pm only with people of a similar ethnic background [are] doing stuff to make sure that they are out of that in extracurricular activities. In other words, mixing up.”

Mr Taylor said he would not want integration added to Ofsted’s inspection criteria because “schools have got enough pressures on them”. But he added: “I think schools should be asked to report on their level of integration and their strategies for integration... I think it’d be a great question to ask school governors: what are you doing to make sure the pupils in your school are mixing with a broader cross-section of society?”

A DfE spokesman said: “Our plan for education is designed to ensure every child of whatever background leaves school prepared for life in modern Britain.... We have strengthened guidance to ensure all schools actively promote fundamental British values and that these are woven throughout the curriculum.

“Faith schools are an important part of our diverse education system and are popular with parents. We have made sure that all new faith academies and free schools can only prioritise half of their places according to the faith, while two-thirds of new free schools have been created in some of the most deprived areas of the country.”

Profile: Matthew Taylor

A former chief adviser to Tony Blair, he played a leading role in putting together Labour policies after the 1997 election. Shortly before Gordon Brown became PM he moved to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce as chief executive.

After leaving Downing Street he spoke of the conflicts between Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Blair-Brown era as leaving staff feeling like “children in a dysfunctional relationship where mum and dad are too busy arguing to ever talk to the kids”.

From 1999 to 2003 he was Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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