I understand your point, however several parties have tried these routes particularly through Glasgow City Council but to no avail, in fact many of the schools within Pollokshields area of Glasgow have Muslim pupils as the majority and campaigners have tried to work with Glasgow City Council to try and identify one of these schools as a suitable Islamic school and despite the overwhelming support from the Muslim community within the area, there was a vicious counter campaign in the press opposed to such an idea.

Since around 2003 Alex Salmond has when courting the Muslim community for votes in the Scottish Parliament, local and national elections, has stated his support for an Islamic state funded schools but almost 10 years on nothing has happended.  

The reality is if you wait for someone else especially those who don't share the same Islamically principled values of honour, dignity, respect, (shurm and haya), then the need will never be as pressing to them as compared to the Muslim community themselves.   Why therefore sit waiting for others and why not get up and do the right thing ourselves - in fact Glasgow has many notable Islamic institutions dotted around the city, which are a direct result of the community coming together and funding such initiatives without reliance on Glasgow City Council or any other public body.

I think all faith schools should be closed and just opened in the school holidays and weekends because faith schools just encourage segregation

The Results Speak for Themselves:

See: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6006501

Who pays to send the kids there? parents? If so,as  I imgaine it will be, they will be from middle class back ground or people with money. If I wanted say, if I had kids and want to send in future and can not afford, yet I pay my taxes for Catholic schools, seems a bit unfair to me.

I do not believe in segreation either, however, I do believe a child has the right for a good education and be taught their religion as well as others. Most parents do not really know their religion or too busy or busy practising culture. We are at this moment in time segreagted whether people like to admit it or not. If it is not about being this branch of faith, it is about what region you are from back home, what caste system you are, what car you drive, where you live, what your daddy does for a living.

I hope Scotland, like England will have a productive professional Islamic education systems and Education as a whole Inshallah.

Salaam,

Br Iftikar,

It's good that you take an interest in education matters affecting Muslim's in Scotland, indeed it is the responsibility of all Muslim  to be concerned about the welfare and upbringing of Muslims and indeed the entire wider community at large wherever they may be. 

Having read your post I would like to comment as follows

It is generally understood that individuals are essentially an outcome of the influences of the environment they live in and indeed how they have been brought up and what influences have contributed to forming their character and personality - if these influences are positive or negative the individual will be influenced either way - I very much accept this in terms of what you have stated - I also very much agree that preserving the traditional cultural language as well English is quite important as this allows individuals the ability to cross communicate between cultures and have a second/third language skill set which is beneficial for them. 

I would however like to make a few points for your consideration, these are as follows:

1) generally speaking all ethnic minority children face challenges within the education system in term of under achievement  - this is widely understood and documented - but it is also important to be aware of the the fact socio-economic factors do play a signifcant part in some of the challenges impacting communities of all kinds irrespective of fath or race - that said very often it is the immigrant communities that tend to be further down in the socio-economic ladder and therefore more likely to be at the receiving end of lower quality education.

 2) I would consider the example of Oldham as cited by you as not applicable to the types of issues and challenges faced in Glasgow - I fully accept racism has been always around - I remember when I was young and growing up in Glasgow, there was hardly a day went by without me being called a 'Paki B.....' or told to 'go back to my own country' or add to the mix being chased or worse beaten for simply being 'brown' - but I will be the first to admit things are much different now than when I was growing up  - perhaps I could be bold enough to state that 'multiculturalism' has worked at least from the overtly racist point of view any way - so please be aware generalising an issue can be at times innacurate.

3) In England there is a much larger ethnic / Muslim community - this has resulted in many Independent Islamic Schools being setup, many of which are academically  highly successful -  the Muslim community in Scotland is much smaller and the challenge we face is that whenever we mention the words 'Islamic Schools' this leashes anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic sentiment mostly I feel by the right wing media who simply sensationailse the topic by misquoting and misrepresenting the issues to create division and stoke up discord within the overall community.

4) I disagree with your statement 'There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school' for the following reasons:

For most Muslim parents, Islamic schooling as an aspiration would be to provide for their children an opportunity to learn all the subjects that would ordinarily be tought in the national curriculum as well as Islamic subjects, all of which delivered through an institution having at its core an Islamic ethos - this ethos would include by default responsibilty, morality, family values, respect, decency, dignity and honour -  I firmly believe these described 'values' are very much universall and the majority of parents irrespective of faith or race would ascribe to them as what they would want for their children - therefore, it is my firm belief that Islamic schools should be and I believe are open to all irrespective of faith or race - in fact it would be entirely uncharacteristic of a Muslim not to be the first to support his fellow human being.

On the matter of a non Muslim teacher in an Islamic school - whilst I agree that if the subject was an Islamic subject then it ought to be taught by someone who was a Muslim themselves - this is fairly simple, anyone wanting to debate this is simply picking an argument for the sake of an argument, I mean how many  Sunday School Church teachers would you find to be Muslim and vice versa how many Imams leading the Friday prayer would be non Muslim - pretty much a no brainer.   However, I personally do not have any objections to other subjects being taught by  non Muslims as long as they were appropriately skilled and applied themselves to the role within the rules of their appointment.

5) Regarding 'state funding' of Islamic schools - well if it is possible then why not, in fact since the Conservative party with their Liberal partners took office, the 'Free Schools' initiative has been enacted I believe in law allowing any group of parents to come together and actually setup schools with the support of public funding - this applies irrespective of whether it is a faith schools or not, from my understanding the government will fund setup cost e.g. to acquire a building, equipment and then ongoing a pupil per head payment to the management of the school - I beleive that the main stipulation is that faith schools should be open to all - pretty simple.  The problem in Scotland is that it would seem there appears to be institutional prejudice at even the idea of an 'islamic school' see: http://www.secularism.org.uk/glasgowcouncilgivingmixedmessage.html - that's our challenge, why therefore do we need to sit back and waste away the years when in actual fact the community can fund an Islamic School initiative from its own capability.

On a separate point regarding bi-lingual children, here in Scotland children from ethnic minorities are very often (if not all the time) regarded as having English as a second language, I have been observing this for several years and have come to the conclusion  this resulting categorisation may in actual fact be negative in so far as developing ethnic minority children to their full potential as I believe teachers expectation of ESL children are less than those who are non ethnic minorities/ESL children.

TariqM