This week there has been a great deal of news coverage about alleged links between three independent schools funded by the taxpayer and the extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. It transpired that some of the details used by David Cameron when he raised the issue in Prime Minister’s Questions were wrong, and that has been the focus of much of the public debate. However, we believe that there are unanswered questions about how all faith schools are monitored.
Last month Accord raised concerns with Paul Holmes MP (Lib Dem, Chesterfield) which led him to ask a parliamentary question to discover what funding has been given to independent faith schools, and on what basis. At that time DCSF minister Diana Johnson said that it would be too expensive to calculate how much money has been given to independent faith schools, essentially because there are too many of them to keep track of. She said:
“There are more than 900 independent faith schools registered with the Department for Children, Schools and Families. A school can seek faith designation at any time, so an answer to this question could be provided only by examining the date at which individual schools sought designation, and the payments made after that time. Therefore this question could be answered only at disproportionate cost.”
Accord Coalition Chair Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain responded:
“It is a disgrace that the government has refused to give a clear answer to questions about funding of independent faith schools. We understand that £157m has been granted to independent faith schools from the public purse since last year, but there is a total lack of transparency about how that money has been given out”
“Our message is simple: private faith schools should not get taxpayers’ money. It is extremely worrying there seems to be government ignorance about the agenda of some faith schools and it begs the question as to whether these schools are building community cohesion or undermining it”.
The controversy has also been commented on by Shaaz Mahboob, the vice chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy who argues that serious questions about faith schools remain.
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