Islamists have founded nearly 50 unregulated schools across the UK which are teaching fundamentalist Islamic curricula contravening British values, a report has claimed.
The unregulated schools are based all over the UK, including in Muslim areas of Birmingham and London. Although they have managed to escape the prying eyes of the Department for Education (DfE) and the schools watchdog Ofsted, they are now being investigated by local education authorities (LEA), the Telegraph reported.
Many of them were allegedly set up by a teacher who was caught up in the so-called Trojan Horse scandal, which saw radical Muslims infiltrating school governing bodies in an attempt to force changes to the curriculum and get rid of teachers who were against them.
The unregulated schools are set up as private tutorial centers, which only offer a limited number of hours per week, meaning that they can slip under the radar of Ofsted and local authorities.
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But it remains a criminal offence to run an unregulated school and local authorities have a responsibility to make sure all children who are supposedly receiving home schooling in their area are getting a suitable education.
Muslim children of Pakistani, Bengali and Somali origin are often at risk of being radicalized in their own homes.
The Telegraph learned that the DfE has launched a number of investigations into unregulated schools as they are too easy to set up.
One such school is Siddeeeq Academy in the heavily Muslim area of Tower Hamlets in East London. It was closed down earlier this year after it was revealed it was being run by Mizanmur Rahman, a convicted Islamist, who claimed to his students that the Taliban was unfairly demonized.
Officially the government says all schools in the UK must promote British values and a Whitehall official told The Sunday Times that unregulated schools are against “democracy, equality and tolerance”.
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“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,” the source said.
But many British teachers are skeptical of pushing so-called fundamental British values too much in the curriculum. Robin Bevan, head of Southend High School for Boys, said that singling out British values wasn’t necessary as they would already be part of a “broad and balanced curriculum.”
The report of investigations into unregulated schools comes after news emerged earlier this month that up to 100 teachers and teaching assistants linked to the Trojan Horse scandal could face life time bans on teaching in UK schools.
The Trojan Horse plot centers around a 72 page document, which calls for the radical Islamisation of secular state schools through the back door.
It calls for girls to be covered except for their hands and faces, for gender segregation in school activities and for the banning of “potentially harmful forms of music” which may include “unethical and un-Islamic lyrics”. The document also describes how Muslim governors must force these views on reluctant schools.