Denmark: DPP says Muslims are racist for sending children to private schools

Denmark: DPP says Muslims are racist for sending children to private schools

Via Fyens Stiftstidende (Danish):

Alex Ahrendtsen, education spokesperson for the Danish People's Party (DPP), said Muslim parents who send their children to private schools are 'little racists'

Ahrendtsen was speaking to TV 2 NEWS, which reported that immigrant children go to private schools more than ethnic Danish children (14% of Danes vs. 15% of immigrant children)

"Arab, Turkish and Somali parents, they stick with their own. They marry their own, and they are not interested in meeting Danes and Danish society, who have reached out to them for 30 years," Alex Ahrendtsen told TV 2 NEWS.

Newspaper Politiken reported today that the number of children in Muslim private schools increased by 25% over the past three years. Cultural sociologist Christian Horst (Aarhus University) says that it's mostly the advantaged Muslim parents who reject the regular schools.

He told Politiken that those Muslim parents have gotten to the conclusion that the public schools aren't good enough and that their children deserve better.

Education minister Christine Antorini (S) doesn't want to point fingers are parents who prefer a Muslim school for their children.

"I think it's just as troubling when Danish parents reject public schools. But in relation to immigrant students we have a problem, that we can see, that public school isn't good enough to start them off professionally," she told Politiken.