Danish school bars Muslim students from wearing niqab

From the Danish edition of The Local and the Copenhagen Post

An adult education centre in the northern Copenhagen suburb of Lyngby has told six female students that they can no longer attend classes unless they remove their niqabs,

The school in question, VUC Lyngby, said that it changed its rules in the autumn to no longer allow students to cover their faces during class but the case only hit the media this week when a post on the school’s Facebook page led to a debate over its policies. 

“Teaching takes place by means of communication, and as a teacher you can better understand your impact if you can see that what you’re saying is being received by the student. And this cannot be done if they’re wearing a niqab,”  deputy headteacher Inge Voller explained to Metroxpress.

The school said that “everyone is welcome” at the institution and that while no one had been thrown out of class for wearing a niqab, the new policy will applies to all future students at the school. The six women who were told that they would not be able to attend future classes while wearing a niqab have been offered the opportunity to follow along via e-learning.

While the school’s policy had its critics, the majority appeared to agree with the decision. Opinion polls on both Metroxpress and Ekstra Bladet showed that an overwhelming majority of readers backed the school.