Inclusion in the City by Potts Patricia;

Author:Potts, Patricia;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1486743
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

THE DEMAND FOR ISLAMIC SCHOOLS

My informants saw the establishment of Islamic schools as a reaction to the failure on the part of state schools to respond to the needs of their children; to respect their identities; to properly include them. The group of six professional women who were instrumental in getting the Islamic primary school off the ground were concerned, according to the head teacher, that ‘the structure wasn’t there to help our children to develop confidence as Muslims’. Some had been through the English state system themselves and wanted their pupils to avoid the shortcomings of their own education. However, when they visited schools they felt that their identities and individuality were still disregarded. In the past teachers ‘did not want to know’ what their needs were; now they made assumptions about their needs before they had got to know them:

‘For example, one particular school … the sort of thing that we heard was “Oh, we have a lot of classroom assistants so that we can speak to the child in their home language. I assume that will be either Punjabi or Urdu.” There were assumptions being made … that the child would not be speaking fluent English when they came into school. And also about clothes: “It’s all right to wear a shalwar kameez.” Making assumptions on the basis of the stated religion that they would want to wear a shalwar kameez rather than more Western dress.’

The members of the Muslim Liaison Committee were concerned about their children’s lack of progress and low admissions into higher education. In response, the Muslim communities had established a large building to house the weekend classes, which had been running in less suitable accommodation for twelve years, and for ‘teacher training classes organized by local schools’. They, too, thought low achievement was related to problems of identity, but felt it was blamed – wrongly – on language difficulties: ‘The teachers say, “What can we do?” This is their second language.’ In their experience, the children’s use of their mother tongue was diminishing rapidly, and this was particularly evident in the mosque:

‘We have to hire a special imam to come and give a sermon on religion in English because our children do not understand our language. The children who are over twenty-five, they might; but below twenty-five, they don’t understand our language.’

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