Now there is much controversy surrounding this story, the Conservatives raised it in the house of commons and Labour are now scurrying around throwing up chaff and trying to cover the tracks. Actually, I couldn't care less about the specifics of these reports, the fact that some relativist Labour drone is arguing with a vote craving Conservative one about who said what, when is secondary in my view. The real meat of this story is about the schools and what they teach the children, any faith school that receives money from the tax payer should be open to scrutiny and accountable to our standards. What I would insist Ed Balls tells me is not where the money came from or how he determines the suitability of school governors, I want to know what is being taught to these children. Mr Balls is keen to throw an accusation of "divisiveness" at the Tories but what could be more divisive than a "faith" school, that's the whole point of them!
So, Mr Balls, please tell, what exactly are these kids being taught when we look at key stage 1 and key stage 2 of the curriculum, how should Islamic schools like this represent the values of Sharia supporting governors like the ones in this story and why is it not divisive for them to do it?
As a thought experiment, I wonder how "Islamic" curriculum notes would look compared to standard ones?
Literacy - requires adjustment to exclude certain poetry units and all use of drama
Science - drop units concerning life processes, especially reproduction, adaptation and evolution
Music - oh deary no..
Sex and Relationship Education - not likely...
RE - cancel the Jewish temple visit, throw all those bibles in the binPE - lessons will be segregated by gender, and the dance units completely removed
Art - probably would have to go entirely
Humanities - reduce to a discussion of the history and geography of the Caliphate
Modern Foreign Languages - Qur'anic Arabic is modern enough
PHSE - of course not!
So when will this Government actually focus on the real issue here which is the education (not indoctrination) of children, and abandon its transparent attempt to capture Muslim votes through divisive apologetics, I'm not holding my breath.
2 comments:
I do believe Cat Stevens has had a re-think on music.
CB, yes he's a (moon)shadow of his former self!
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