How does a school become inadequate in just two years, asks Naeem Malik?
In 2012 Ofsted gave Park View School in Alum Rock a glowing report. It was very complementary about the staff and its management, including the governors. The school was reported to have performed above average in GCSE grades and these results had consistently improved over the three years prior to the inspection.
In short, Ofsted declared the school “outstanding.”
Just two years later the same Ofsted is (according to media reports) about to declare the same school “inadequate” and worthy of being put under “special measures.”
The so-called conspiracy that Ofsted failed to see any evidence of two years earlier prompted the Prime Minister to appoint an ex-officer from the Counter Terror Unit to inquire into a conspiracy to subvert these schools and others for some dubious Muslim agenda.
But why did the previous Ofsted inspection fail to recognise any hint of such a conspiracy? Do these conspiracies really exist? Either way, has Ofsted any credibility left? At best it is incompetent. What is most likely is that Ofsted has allowed itself to be used to aid the State to achieve its political and ideological objectives.
In 2012, Ofsted declared as one of its key findings following an inspection Of Park View School that: “The curriculum is outstanding. It makes a major contribution to the students’ academic success and to their excellent spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The curriculum helps students to develop into very thoughtful, independent and confident young people.”
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Yet, just two years later, in 2014, it is reported the same Ofsted will find the school “practised forced and discriminatory sex segregation” and had “restricted GCSE subjects to comply with conservative Islamic teaching”. It will also be alleged that core elements of the GCSE syllabus were missed out as “un–Islamic.”
Politically driven
This sudden change of heart by Ofsted is politically driven to suit the State’s agenda against the Muslim communities because of their opposition to the State’s foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East and South and Central Asia.
There has been an onslaught on Muslim communities across the country for some years. Not a day goes by when one of the national tabloids doesn’t report on some extraordinary behaviour by a Muslim community group or individual that then has the whole establishment and media denouncing the behaviour as anti-British and against the ethos of Western civilization.
In Birmingham, the demonisation is even more acute. In 2010, spy cameras were installed around the predominantly Muslim areas of Birmingham which included Alum Rock – the neighbourhood served by Park View School. The cameras were part of the Project Champion, funded by the Counter Terror Unit.
The message than was quite clear – the Muslim Communities in Birmingham were not to be trusted. It was necessary to put them under surveillance 24/7. The authorities expected the cameras would go unnoticed and the Muslim communities would acquiesce with the connivance of so-called community leaders to being spied upon.
But there was outrage against the attempt to put whole communities under surveillance; the cameras were removed and the West Midlands Police Authority publicly apologized to the communities concerned.
So, what are the political and ideological imperatives for the State to indulge in this latest demonisation of the same Muslim communities once more?
The spy cameras fiasco caught the authorities unaware. The Muslim communities were one of the most vociferous in their opposition to the West’s interventions in the East. These opponents of British foreign policy based on interventions had to be silenced. Anti-Terror Laws are part of the state’s arsenal to silence dissent.
Anti-Terror laws
The many arrests under the Anti-Terror laws are ideologically driven and very few, if any, are for actual preparation or execution of any act of violence.
A particular example is that of Munir Farooqi in Manchester who was arrested in 2009 for describing the virtues of Jihad at the instigation of undercover agents. Detective Chief Superintendent, Tony Porter, of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit following Munir’s conviction commented: “This was an extremely challenging case, both to investigate and successfully prosecute at court, because we did not recover any blueprint, attack plan or endgame for these men. However, what we were able to prove was their ideology”.
Is this a precedent for thought crime?
Individuals have been arrested for owning books that are freely available in the many university libraries in Birmingham. One particular book, by the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, was considered useful in aiding and abetting an act of terror, not because it was a manual a terrorist can use to physically construct an instrument of terror but because the book can be used to justify the act of terror.
Already, many arrests have been made and some successfully convicted not because the accused had actually committed an act of terror or was preparing one but because the new Anti-Terror laws deem an act of terror propagating an ideology or political viewpoint that the state deems can justify an act of terror.
Any opposition to UK’s foreign policy can be deemed to be aiding and abetting terrorism under the new anti-terror laws. Anything that helps the act of radicalisation has now become an act of terror under the new Anti-Terror laws.
The state has created an atmosphere of fear of the Muslim communities. The affair of the “Trojan Horse” is used to fuel that fear. Why should an attempt by some Muslims in the city through democratic institutions like the school governing bodies to establish a conservative social ethos provoke such an over-the-top reaction by the State?
There is no indication that the school management has enforced any particular ethos, particularly where segregation is concerned or practising of faith. The previous Ofsted inspections have not uncovered any compulsion on part of the teachers or the management forcing pupils to one particular faith or religious practice. The Ofsted report of 2012 particularly commended the school for its outstanding curriculum that helps develop very thoughtful, independent and confident young people.
There are other similar communities, like the churches and others that have tried to establish conservative social ethos in schools that serve their communities. The Prime Minister’s appointment of Peter Clarke, the ex-head of the Counter Terror unit at Scotland Yard to inquire into the “Trojan Horse” affair has already tainted the whole saga as part of the counter terrorism initiative.
Birmingham MP, Khalid Mahmood has already suggested, following the Tojan Horse saga, that the spy cameras removed in 2010 be re-installed. Birmingham City Council has already suspended the appointment of new governors in Birmingham schools.
What other democratic structures are going to be threatened or dismantled in the process of silencing dissent? Are we going to be silenced? Can we defend our democratic control over our institutions including those that educate our young citizens?
