UK: Muslim school cleared of hate-preaching

... After removing all Saudi books.  I suppose the UK finds nothing wrong with the Saudi curriculum teaching kids that Jews are apes and Christians are pigs.

An investigation by the British Department for Education has cleared a Saudi-funded Islamic school in London of hate-preaching, after teachers removed all references from controversial textbooks which taught that Jews were "apes" and Christians were "pigs".

The King Fahad Academy had its textbooks and lesson plans scrutinised thoroughly by officials from the UK's education watchdog, OFSTED, in an "emergency" inspection last month.

The inquiry had been ordered by Jim Knight, the Education Minister, after details of the controversial syllabus were revealed during an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal being brought by a former teacher, Colin Cook.

Further details of Cook's allegations were later broadcast in a television documentary.

At the time, Sumaya Alyusuf, the director of the London-based academy, promised to take out controversial pages from the school's textbooks and appointed a committee to carry out an internal review of the school's teaching material, insisting that teachers were initially unaware of their content and that the offending textbooks were rarely used.

As part of its investigation, OFSTED said it interviewed teachers and pupils, demanded to know where the school's books were stored and read them to ensure they were of a high quality and did not contain inflammatory material.

Their report said they were satisfied that the previous inflammatory textbooks - which have now been removed from the school - were rarely used and had very limited availability. The report added that the textbooks were now set to be shredded.

"The textbooks referred to in the television programme have all been removed and are no longer available as a teaching resource.

Inspectors are satisfied with the school's responses and explanations as to their previous very limited availability and usage. The school and the inspectors agree that these materials are inappropriate for the international curriculum that the school is developing," the report said.

It added: "These books have been withdrawn and are to be shredded, along with all other books from the Saudi curriculum . Inspectors visited the skip with over 2,000 books awaiting shredding and saw the supporting paperwork.

Current textbooks seen for Islamic Studies meet the requirements of the regulations."

Ruling that the school's current syllabus is up to scratch, OFSTED concluded: "The school meets all the regulations concerning pupils'
spiritual, moral, social and cultural education." It ruled that its 600 pupils learn about "their own and other cultures" in accordance with DfES guidelines.

In a statement, Alyusuf said she was "delighted that the Academy's name has now been cleared".

Source: EJP (English)

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