MPs criticise impact of madrassa inspection plans
Adam Offord
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Government plans to regulate out-of-school education settings such as Islamic madrassas will have a negative impact on Christian Sunday schools, MPs have claimed.
As part of efforts to tackle extremism, the Department for Education plans to require out-of-school settings to register with their local authority and be subject to inspections by Ofsted. ?
Action will be taken against out-of-school settings found to be failing to safeguard children and promote their welfare, particularly settings where extremist ideology is being taught.
??But speaking in parliament last week during a debate on Europe, human rights and keeping people safe, Conservative MP for Aldershot Gerald Howarth said regulating Sunday schools is "clearly absurd”.
?“It would place a huge administrative burden on such groups, would severely damage volunteering and would be a serious infringement of personal liberty and freedom of association,” Howarth said. ??
Under government plans, which went out to consultation in November, out-of-school settings would become subject to inspection if they are providing a child with more than six hours a week of education.
Howarth said: “Extremist groups simply would not register, or, given the arbitrary nature of a six-hour figure, would divide their teaching into two three-hour groups a week. This is unworkable and a danger to our freedoms.
??“On the wider issue, it would be perverse in the extreme if, in order to manage extremist Muslims who are bent on our destruction and whom we have allowed to settle in the country, the government were to impose severe restrictions on those practising the state religion of Christianity, which espouses turning the other cheek and love for thy neighbour.”
??Democratic Unionist Party MP for Belfast East, Gavin Robinson, also hit out at the plans.
?“I would love to know whether the proposed regime will include an Ofsted appointment and the regulation of out-of-school educational settings,” he said. ??“If it will, it will breach the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment to reject any sweeping authoritarian measures that would threaten the hard-won freedoms in this country.
??“It would be far too wide and far too shallow, when, in response to extremism, we need a measure that is deep and narrowly focused.”
Last month, Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw warned that more children than previously thought are at risk of "harm and indoctrination" after the number of illegal schools identified since the turn of the year passed the 100 mark.
??The MPs are not the first to hit out at the government proposals. In April, five Christian organisations, including Christian Action Research & Education, released a joint statement calling for the plans to be scrapped due to them being “an unacceptable overreach of the state”. ?
