Posted on 02/07/2007 10:59:04 AM PST by blam
Multi-faith schools planned to fight extremism
By Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent, and Richard Holt
Last Updated: 8:06am GMT 07/02/2007
A new generation of controversial multi-faith academies will be built to combat extremism in England’s most segregated towns and cities, a leading Downing Street advisor said yesterday.
The new-style schools will educate children from Christian, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds, forcibly integrating pupils of different faiths, according to Sir Cyril Taylor, chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
The announcement comes as Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, is due to announce a £35 million fund to help town halls lead the fight against Muslim extremism as part of what Tony Blair calls a "radical and head-on" confrontation.
Ms Kelly is to say that the "battle for hearts and minds" cannot be won from Whitehall as she sets out fresh guidance on the role town halls can play, warning that, in the wake of the arrest of nine terror suspects in Birmingham last week, action is more urgently needed than ever.
Around 50 local authorities - mainly in Britain's major cities - are working with local Muslim communities to devise new approaches to be funded by the Pathfinder scheme cash.
Sir Cyril's announcement on multi-faith academies follows a report into the 2001 race riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford which criticised the government policy of encouraging single-faith schools. The review said that schools dominated by children of one faith fuelled deeper divisions among young people.
Experts have warned that such schools are impractical. But Sir Cyril, architect of Tony Blair’s flagship academies programme, said multi-faith academies may be built at the heart of at least 25 inner-city areas to promote greater understanding between religions and cultures.
Addressing a schools conference in London, he said: “At these multi-faith academies, pupils will learn about all religions.
“There will also be improved teaching of British history and citizenship, and the academies will have community centres, which I believe will persuade Muslim parents to develop closer links with their children’s schools.
“I hope similar academies will eventually be built in all the areas in England that have high concentrations of Muslim families.”
At least three schools are already under development in Oldham, the scene of some of the worst rioting six years ago.
Council officials want to shut seven of the town’s 15 schools and replace them with academies.
But such designs have not always been a success. Plans for a similar academy in Westminster two years ago - for Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu children - collapsed because faith groups could not agree how it would work.
Under the proposals, children would have been taught together for most subjects but split along faith lines for religious education and collective worship.
However, the school never opened following disagreements between different faiths over whether boys and girls should be allowed to mix in the classroom and playground.
Sir Cyril said that action was needed amid fears that segregated schools may become a security risk.
“I believe segregation can fuel extremism,” he said yesterday.
“Our Muslim communities are much more likely to help the police over atrocities such as the July 7 Tube bombings if they are better integrated.”
Although the latest plans have the support of the Government, ministers deny they will be made up of “quotas” of different faiths.
Last month, Lord Adonis, the schools minister, said religious leaders would be involved in setting up the academies - ensuring they accommodate children of different faiths - but pupils would not be selected along religious lines.
“We are not talking about designating certain faith-based parameters but having a school that would have a multi-faith ethos, leadership and governance,” he said.
More government in education. That'll work.
Here's my advice to the Brits: It's your culture; use it or lose it.
Brits need to spend less time worrying about pacifying minorities and more worrying about teaching children to be proud of the British heritage. Once they stop despising themselves, ethnic Enlighmen will discover that minorities find their values more attractive, too.
Oh yes, I can see this working out real well. At last count, several hundred teachers in "multi-faith" schools in South Thailand have been killed and hundreds of schools have been burnt down. Just Muslims exercising their "religious freedom" to subject and eliminate all other religions.
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