I’m all for people celebrating their varieties of cultural heritage, acknowledging their history, and so forth. But for me such things end at the school gates. I’m vehemently opposed to sectarian or religious schools of all stripes. (I’m not particularly enthusiastic about any kind of private schooling, but in practice there are always going to be children whose individual needs and aptitudes cannot be accomodated within the public system. But this should depend on the needs of the child, not the prejudices of the parents.) Once you allow bishops, priests, rabbis, and creationist car-dealers to dictate the curriculum, you’re going to wind up with situations like this:
The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as “apes” and Christians as “pigs” and has refused to withdraw them. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton. In an interview on BBC2’s Newsnight, Dr Alyusuf was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether she recognised the books. She said: “Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve.”
And what might those objectives be? Well:
[Mr. Cook] also alleges that when he questioned whether the curriculum complied with British laws, he was told: “This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia”.
To Christians and Jews who would argue that such books don’t belong in the classroom: I agree. And the same goes for your own religious texts, which also contain viciously intolerant language.
