Since the implementation of the Prevent strategy, 400 Muslim children under the age of 10 have been referred to the ‘anti-radicalisation’ programme
Earlier this week, Ofsted head Michael Wilshaw confirmed that inspectors can downgrade schools if they feel that the wearing of the niqab – by either teachers or pupils – is impairing learning. Phrased like this, it seems a reasonable policy.
In reality, however, opening the door to penalising the wearing of Islamic dress in this way is deeply worrying.
For a start, it’s unclear exactly why the niqab might be an obstacle to learning. Muslims have been teaching, learning and otherwise communicating wearing the full-face veil for centuries in Islamic countries all around the world.
It’s also unclear why Wilshaw feels the need to single out the niqab: if inspectors feel that learning is being impaired in any way, by any item of dress or obstacle to communication, surely they are able to reflect that in their report without the niqab being specified as a potential reason for an ‘inadequate’ rating.
But this policy is particularly concerning given that it follows a trend in recent weeks and months that has seen the practise, expression or even discussion of Islam in schools as suspicious.
Since the implementation of the ‘Prevent’ strategy, 400 Muslim children under the age of 10 have been referred to the ‘anti-radicalisation’ programme, and new E-safety legislation is forcing schools to install software which tracks the use of words such as ‘Pakistan’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Quran’.
Launching a new ‘Educate against Hate’ website this week which encourages teachers to look out for ‘warning signs’ of radicalisation such as rapid conversion to religion, Education secretary Nicky Morgan admitted that conversion to Christianity ‘of course’ doesn’t count as one such warning sign – showing the clear disparity between the treatment of Christians and Muslims in this country.
When we make young Muslim children feel monitored, isolated and demonised for practising their religion in our schools, we damage irreparably community cohesion, trust and mutual respect. We lose the potential for discussion of difficult but important topics – and opportunities for truly valuable learning. Children in this country are at risk of radicalisation – but we need to tackle this through education, not demonisation.
Indeed, if Michael Wilshaw wants to eliminate barriers to learning in schools, he should perhaps look to the overassessment, rigid focus on examinations and targets, and back-breaking teacher workload which now characterise our education system. Allowing both teachers and pupils to teach, learn – and wear – what they like would do children a world of good.
Sophie van der Ham is co-chair of the Young Greens
95 Responses to “Comment: Ofsted – not the niqab – is impairing learning in schools”
jj
Strongly discouraged IMO.
Max Schumacher
While neoliberalism surely produced its own barriers to learning, wearing (and therefore promoting to wear) is a genuine hindrance to learning. It should be sufficient to say that schools are not places to practice religion, and if it isn’t, take a look at the way schools in islamic countries work (not to mention Quran “schools”/madrassas).
How can one possibly forget so totally that it was always the left in European history who tried to break the control of religion over public education, only to let another religion takeover softly, softly today? If we freethinkers don’t defend the right to secular schools, we will have to suffer that rightwing xenophobes wrongly pose as defenders of freedom while at the same time being used as useful idiots by people with a totally different agenda.
Faerieson
I’m inclined to agree with all that you have written about ‘fundamentalist Islam,’ but suspect that your’s might also have been a wider swipe.
But there are really two separate issues here, mangled into one article. The niqab impairs more than learning, it impairs life. How could it not, in subjugating women so?
The second issue is ‘Ofsted and the impairment that this has on education.’ To have mangled the two issues so the writer has undermined an otherwise (extremely) valid point. There are a few more serious investigations into whether this has been the case, and they are overwhelmingly quite damning. They have also been very quickly buried by successive governments, even when they have been commissioned by said government and have cost millions to undertake. We should be asking why this might be happening.
If so many of the educators find fault with Ofsted something cannot be right.
Faerieson
With your blinkered perspective you taint any vilid point that you might ever happen to stumble across.
Wendle Trendle
The left has become a parody of itself.
The working class betrayed so that rich kid activists can play.