Teacher's warning over faith policy

Oct 18 2006 By Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

MOVES to force faith schools to accept pupils from other religions would be unenforceable, the head of Birmingham's only state-funded Islamic primary revealed today.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has indicated backing a change in the law to allow local councils to set a quota of up to 25 per cent of pupils from different religions at new faith schools.

He insisted that the proposed measures, which were the subject of a recent leaked Cabinet report, were aimed at all faith schools and not targeted just at the Muslim community.

But the founder of AlFurqan Primary, in Reddings Lane, Tyseley, doubted whether the idea would work in practice.

Zahida Hussain, who is now the school's head of strategic development, said: "This is not an issue for me as a professional, but parents may see it as one. Instead of being able to fill all 30 places, the Muslim parents who make up our catchment area would only be able to apply for 23."

"I don't know where the other children would be expected to come from. It would be completely unenforceable.

"There are non-faith schools in this area where 98 per cent of the children are Muslim because of the local community they serve. How do you enforce this 25 per cent quota in these instances?

"It doesn't make sense, and certainly, not much consultation has taken place.

"It would probably help take some of the taboos away if children from different faiths were able to be taught alongside each other, but I don't know how they are planning to do this."

The Birmingham Mail revealed yesterday that a minority of pupils at some inner city Catholic primary schools were actually Catholic.

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