UK: Teachers' union rejects motion against faith schools

The motion failed, thereby making it uninteresting to the mass media.

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'Hell will freeze over' before Muslim schools give children a liberal education, teachers were told today.


Faith schools threaten to cause religious segregation and must not be expanded, said Wesley Paxton from teachers' union Voice.


He suggested divisions like those seen in Northern Ireland between Protestant and Catholic communities could arise in England if more Islamic groups take over schools.


His remarks follow government moves to give religious groups a greater role in education through an expansion of academies and an offer of state funding for private Muslim schools.


In a speech at the union's annual conference in Daventry, Mr Paxton said: 'More faith schools is probably going to mean more Islamic schools. There are already many schools with more than 50 per cent non-white enrolment.


'What benefits will there be by emphasising differences, by removing what non-Muslim influences these people will have, and reduce their chances of having a balanced upbringing?


'For girls in particular, can you imagine a UK madrassa being a hotbed of liberality, co-education, and having Cosmopolitan in the school library? I have a vivid imagination but I can't envisage that,' he said. 'In the words of President Nixon, "Hell will freeze over first." We are all people, we all breathe the same air, we need fewer distinctions, not more.'


Mr Paxton proposed a motion at the conference that warned: 'The opening of new faith schools could be divisive not inclusive.' Delegates were due to vote on it today.


The call follows plans to double the number of semi-independent academies in London to 70 by 2011, opening the way for more faith groups to run schools.


Last year, ministers pledged to support Muslim parents who wanted access to faith-based education for their children.


The Government said there was a demand for some private Muslim schools to join the state education system.


But Children's Secretary Ed Balls later claimed there was no government plan to expand faith schools.


He has also criticised popular faith schools for using their extra powers over admissions policies unfairly.


Dozens were found to have broken admissions rules while some allegedly charged parents fees for what should have been a free state education.



Sources: Daily Mail, Voice (English)

6 comments:

Daphne said...

Why does the govt fund private schools at all? If people want to opt out of the state system then let them do it but without taxpayers money subsidising them.
Taxpayers money is being paid to Islamic schools whose intent is to destroy the democratic system.
Wherever muslims gain a majority the country rapidly deteriorates into a dictatorship. Of Islamic countries only Turkey has managed to retain a secular education and democratic system but I doubt that will remain long as the present govt there is gradually islamising the country.
France has shown the way dorward. Schools are places for education. No religious symbols should be allowed in state schools. Let children get their brainwashing elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

You're exactly right, Daphne. But if they monitor the schools, which they can do if they fund them, they can't allow racist Saudi textbooks which teach them to kill Jews, Shiites, and dogs. They can control teh curriculum, which means that any real Islamic teachings other than fasting can't be instituted, since they're all about intolerabce, murder, pedophilia, rape, torture, supremacy, etc. Take all that away and you're left with, well, fasting.

Daphne said...

I would rather they secularise schools. Private & non state funded schools could still be open to prosecution if they teach racism & incite violence. Both criminal offences. There was an Islamic school in London that did have a racist curriculum. I don't understand why they were not prosecuted.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23384657-details/We+do+use+books+that+call+Jews+'apes'+admits+head+of+Islamic+school/article.do

Hanz said...

Daphne; I beleive that you have quite bad impression about the islamic education. I beleive it is the most life-motivating and tolerating philosophy. Just give yourself sometime to know more about it, may be not with the intention to be persuaded by Islamic philosophy in ppl live, but at least to appreciate the tolerence and basic moral concepts that the islamic education can bring to the kids. It really open their minds and motivate their life for playing, learning, respecting others as long as others respecting them and their beleives. I am an example of a guy who has educated in Islamic country, with all of the morals and openiness to others and their ideas. I beleive I am as successsful as a software engineer, making a PhD in europe , and I am happy to talk occasionally with ppl (non-muslims and muslims as well) about my beleives in a peaceful and gentle way.

I hope you do not look at the bad picture presented by the peace-enemies who are actually not affiliated to Islam at all, and just wanna destroy the actual morals of Islam and muslims life.

Please put away hate and violence picture aside, and look at and ask ppl in your vicinity; those who wanna make education that interwin islamic morals with the ecuation of natural sciences and history to make a perfect match for open-minded next generation in europe.

Daphne said...

Hanz, I have a bad impression of islam because muslims adhere to a doctrine of violence & racism. I have a bad impression of islam because muslims extol a man who was a slave trader, murderer, assassin, & thug. A man who stole his idea of religion in order to control and commandere people rather than enlighten them.
Islam is not tolerant when it tells its followers not to make friends with jews & christians. Islam is not tolerant when it tells its followers to slay pagans wherever they find them. Islam is not tolerant when it advocates flogging women for committiung adultery. Islam is not tolerant when it calls for the amputation of the hands of thieves. Islam is not tolerant when it punishes apostates.
Islam is the most intolerant of all religions and should not be pressed upon chiildren. Teaching children the ways of islam will instil intolerance & hatred of all other religions.
I do not doubt that there are good muslims. I do not doubt there were good germans in nazi germany. But they were subject to a doctrine that preached hate and brainwashed by it to the extent that they would turn their back when atrocities were committed in the name of nazism.
It is islam that is hateful. A cursory reading of the Koran should inform most people of that. The book is full of hate for all non muslims. The only compassion in the Koran was written when Muhammad was being persecuted or the extracts that were stolen from the Talmud. You should know that the extract that claims
'if anyone slew a person - unless it be in retaliation for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew all mankind: and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all humanity.'
was taken from the Talmud.
Why is the Islamic god stealing from jewish scribes???? The obvious answer is that Muhammad heard this story in the local souk and stole it. Just as he stole the islamic religion from jews & christians.

Hanz said...

yea, I can see you are inside one box and looking at evrything from inside it. You know, I born in Islamic family, and when I got matured enough to understand my beleives, told myself "I must get out of this box of islamic philosophy, and look to it from others' views". I already made that, but beleive me, I found Islam as complementary to the series of the so-called sky-religions of Moses and Juses prophets (God bless tham all). I hope you can do that too, if you really wanna give it time.

Everyting you said in your comment deserves a reply. I am sure, you have a biased view about Islam. When you reason about an idea or philosophy, free yourself from any other ideaology which biases your reasoning with predefined assumptions.

There is no Islamic God or Jewish God, Daphne. There is only one God of this universe since its start, it is the God of ppl and prophets before Moses, and the God of Moses and his holy book Tawrah, and also the God of Jesus and the holy book of Engeel, and the God of Muhammad and the holy book of Quran.

It is crystal clear that the early books like Engeel and Tawrah are modified by religious ppl along the history for personal benefits or whatever. The Tawrah had suffered a lot of modifications until it reached the current copy with all its derivatives. Eben the original Tawrah has been written after about 800 years of Moses death.

I think we would better leave this debate, and come back to the basics and reason about idealogies in this world without bias. Once we have something in mind, then we can contact minded ppl to ask them, gently and openly, about the nature of this idealogy.

I am sure you got the point, and I hope you and everybody to give it a stop and think of what they beleive in.