In Birmingham, 25 schools are now being investigated by four separate enquiries after accusations that the have been “taken over” and “infiltrated” by “Muslim extremists”. The strategy was revealed in a letter between sent from Birmingham to Bradford, and forwarded to Birmingham City Council last year: "We have caused a great amount of organised disruption in Birmingham and as a result we now have our own academies and are on our way to getting rid of more headteachers and taking over their schools." It is not known whether the letter is genuine – others have suggested it’s a deliberately provocative hoax. Either way, it has prompted some 200 other complaints from parents and some teachers.
What “taken over” and “infiltrated” apparently means is that governing bodies have allegedly been packed with Muslim members, who have then to influence the teaching, policies and, in some cases, staffing of community schools and academies in east Birmingham. What “Muslim extremists” means is anybody’s guess – it’s unclear if the phrase is being used to describe the means of influence, or the ends. The chief constable of West Midlands police has raised concerns about the connotations of the Secretary of State appointing a former Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism specialist to lead the Department for Education’s own enquiry.
East Birmingham is undergoing a process of massive demographic change. In 2001 41.5% of the population of Washwood Heath – the ward in which the Park View Academy, one of the schools in question, sits – was Asian/Pakistani. In 2011, the corresponding figure was 57%. If the phrase ‘white flight’ applies anywhere, it’s east Birmingham. In 2001, Washwood Heath had 11,174 white/British residents – 40% of the population. In 2011, 7749 of those residents had left, and only 10% of the population was white/British. Visiting the area as part of a recent research project, it was clear that some of the remaining white/British residents felt very much as if the area had been “taken over”, and that they were becoming strangers in their own streets. At least some of those 200 complaints should probably be understood in this frame.
This is not to say that concerns are simply the product of bigoted imaginations. Those same demographic changes will express themselves in the life on local institutions. If part of the proper role of a school governor is to help schools "respond to the needs of parents and of the community", and when the make-up of the community changes – and at such a pace – no wonder that there will be for some a sense of dislocation and indeed marginalisation. In principle, surely we should have no concerns about community schools or academies reflecting the reasonable aspirations of Muslim parents. In practice, you could well understand how others would see this as imposition and capture.
Who is to say where to draw the line on some of these questions? Is the aspiration to have single sex schooling outside the bounds of public legitimacy? Isn’t it hypocritical to treat it as an affront to British values in East Birmingham and not to bat an eyelid when its middle class white girls and boys in Surrey? Of course, there’s more to be said when it comes to Islam and gender, but these calls are hard to make at a distance, particularly when we’re not yet in possession of the full facts. If we accept the principle of broad public involvement in education through governing bodies, then our grounds for complaint are limited to cases where rules and proper procedures have not been followed – for instance, where a governing body has exceeded it's remit and interfered in the day to day running of a school. Here, we come to the vexed question of the ‘freedom’ of academy schools from local control and oversight.
It has not yet been established whether or not the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter which prompted early concerns is genuine, or a provocative hoax. But if I were to lay a small bet on the matter, I would put it on a relatively small number of genuine cases of manipulation by Salafi groups, mixed with quite a lot of wider Muslim communities looking in legitimate ways for schooling that reflects their values, which prompts the beleaguered and marginalised minority white community to feel like they’re being robbed of the opportunity to have their children educated in a way that’s meaningful for them. It’s neither simple nor pretty, it’s just where we are. To use a sporting metaphor, these are the kind of balls that will pop out of the ruck of the heritage of naïve immigration policies, rapid demographic change and the growth in the number of academy schools.
One final point with which to conclude. None of the 25 schools being investigated are faith schools. Contrary to the vexatious claims of the National Secular Society, the issue has absolutely nothing to do with the state funding of religious schools. There may be problems and controversies around faith schools, but these events in Birmingham are not an instance of them. There may even be problems with faith schools in east Birmingham (I think there’s anecdotal evidence that white parents may favour Christian schools, for obvious reasons given the above), but Muslim communities, if they have sought to influence community schools or academies, will not have been caused to do so by the presence of schools with a religious foundation. If it’s been done, it would have been done anyway.
I make no claim to know the right policy response, but I think I could pick a few wrong ones. The most superficial thing that can be said about the business – remembering, of course, that we the general public are not yet in possession of anything like the full facts – is to use it as an argument against faith schools. As arguments go, its plain lazy.
Paul Bickley
Image by JimmyGuano from wikipedia.org available in the public domain
