Islamists set up ‘anti-UK’ schools

EDUCATION officials are investigating up to 50 unregulated schools set up by Islamists, including several established by a former teacher at the centre of the so-called Trojan Horse scandal. These schools are situated where one might expect, Tower Hamlets, Birmingham, Luton… The children are from Bengali, Pakistani and Somali, families, taken out of mainstream education to be ‘home schooled’.

They avoid scrutiny because they operate outside the mainstream education system which is regulated by the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofsted, the schools’ watchdog. 

One of the schools is Siddeek academy in Tower Hamlets. That school was raided in October and closed down in January It was run by Mizanur Rahman, a convicted Islamist extremist who has claimed Taliban gunmen who killed 132 children at a Pakistan school were “unfairly demonised”. 

A Whitehall official said the DfE had launched a series of investigations into the growing number of unregulated schools amid concern about the numbers of children travelling to Syria to join jihadists. The official said some of the unregulated schools are run by people who are opposed to “democracy, equality, and tolerance” because they are seen to conflict with their religious beliefs. “If you are a Salafi Muslim or an Islamist, that means you don’t believe in British values because they go against your ideologies and set of beliefs. The problem is anyone can set up one of these schools and there are no regulations for it and they can then go on to brainwash children,” 

These unregualted schools are set up ostensibly to provide supplementary tuition. Because they are only supposed to provide a few hours a week they escape the inspection of Ofsted and the Department of Education. 

Monzoor Hussain, the former acting principal at Park View Academy in Birmingham, who was at the centre of the so-called Trojan Horse affair, last year helped set up Aim-High Private Tuition and Education Centre, which runs three unregulated schools in Wolverhampton, Stoke and Birmingham. . .  another school is City Educators Ltd in northwest London.

Hussain has already been banned (temporarily) from teaching by the National College for Teaching and Leadership because of his activities at Park View 

Ofsted said the subject of unregulated schools was a matter for the DfE, which declined to comment. They will probably pass the buck to Ofsted. Then after the election… who knows?