.ltMuslims' single-sex row may spread from Bradford
The Times Educational Supplement,
11 January 1974
Unknown numbers of Muslim girls are being "sent back to Pakistan" when they reach puberty - but in fact they stay at home, hiding from the education authorities because their parents do not want them to go to coeducational schools, Muslim leaders claimed this week.
Education officials agree, and there are fears that the row in Bradford over Muslim girls who cannot get into single sex schools will act as a catalyst for longstanding frustrations wherever there are Muslims in Britain.
In Bradford (where 10 per cent of the school population is Muslim), the Muslim Parents' Association, which was formed last weekend after Mr Abdullah Patel refused to send his daughter to the coeducational school she was offered, is deadlocked with the education authority. Mrs Doris Birdsall, the education committee chairman, insists that they cannot provide single sex education because Bradford has been phasing out single sex schools for some time. "Concessions" made to the Parents' Association over school uniforms and meals were already part of education policy anyway, officials say.
But one prominent member of the Bradford Muslim community, Mr Mohammed Saheed, says moves to save single sex education began months before recent cases. The number of Muslim girls of secondary school age has recently become much larger, and immigrants who had been in the country for many years felt they were in a position to start to take action, he said.
Many of the Muslims around Bradford are from the Kashmir area of Pakistan, and stricter than those from some other areas. Another immigrant spokesman suggested that Muslims from the Indian subcontinent often try to out-Islam the Arabs in their obedience to the Koran.
Mr Riadh El-Droubie, of Minatet House, London, a national Muslim educational body, feels the Bradford row will put muscle behind moves to set up Muslim schools, possibly with voluntary aided status. A committee meets soon to decide the best places for them. "Money would not be important", Mr El-Droubie said. "The morals of society in Britain are not acceptable to us; we are planning our own school because we believe prevention is better than cure. Education authorities only think about education. We are thinking of the moral and religious health of future generations."
Mr R. Malik of the Federation of Pakistani Organizations, believes that separate schools would be divisive. Muslims would be best advised to press for "the choice we are constantly told parents in Britain have. Many English parents want single sex education as well".
The Community Relations Commission will be having discussions to decide their attitude towards the question, but community relations officers in areas with many Muslims have been helping prevent Bradford-type problems by liaising between protesting parents and the education authorities.
In Sheffield parents were sometimes convinced by a trip round a coeducational school. This dispelled lurid fears bred by lack of contact. The local authority tried to ensure that those who were not won over got single sex places for their daughters. Other authorities took the same line.
In Birmingham there was a conscious effort to retain single sex schools in the reorganized system and to provide Muslim girls with places in them. But in other parts of the country reorganization has meant an end to schools where Muslims can cheerfully send their daughters. In Rotherham, the last single sex school was phased out last year. But there has been no trouble there, said the community relations officer, Mr T. Malik, because local Muslims want their girls to have the best opportunities. He says parents have taken the attitude that "if we had wanted to be choosy, we would have emigrated to Mecca".
In places like Blackburn and Huddersfield, however, there are fears that immigrants who have so far accepted not getting girls into single sex schools will now take action. In Peterborough 10 Pakistani and Indian families are refusing to send girls to mixed schools because the available single sex school is full. The crunch is expected next year in Dewsbury, when the last single sex school is phased out, and later in Manchester.
Most Muslims claim that while most parents would prefer to send their children to single sex schools they have felt powerless to challenge a local authority which is getting rid of such schools, except by sending their children back to Pakistan-or at least pretending to do so. While some blame the Bradford case on opportunism and demagoguery, others see it as the start of a strenuous campaign to preserve Muslim morals.
.lcMuslim girls are sometimes kept at home if single sex schools are not available to them because the Koran forbids girls to mix with males other than close relatives after puberty. Religious leaders tend to support separate schools for Muslim girls, but many girls attend mixed, secular schools.
