Report Praises Islamic Schools Which Oppose Western Lifestyle

OFSTED, Britain's Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services & Skills, and the Charity Commission are today accused of "whitewashing" hard-line Islamic schools which are helping to radicalize a new generation of young British Muslims.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has established that the education watchdog has published positive reports praising Muslim schools for their contribution to community cohesion — even in the case of a school which openly states that Muslims “oppose the lifestyle of the West”.

The OFSTED inspector responsible for many of the reports, Michele Messaoudi, has been accused of having links to radical Islamist organizations.

This newspaper can reveal that another recent OFSTED inspector, Akram Khan-Cheema, is the chief executive of a radical Muslim educational foundation, IBERR. Its website describes Islamic schools as “one of the most important factors which protect Muslim children from the onslaught of Euro-centrism, homosexuality, racism, and secular traditions”.

OFSTED has also passed the inspection of dozens of Muslim schools to a new private “faith schools watchdog”, the Bridge Schools Inspectorate, which is co-controlled by Islamic schools’ own lobbying and trade body, the Association of Muslim Schools.

The Bridge Schools Inspectorate allows Muslim head teachers to inspect each other’s schools. Among the schools directly inspected by OFSTED was the Madani Girls’ School, a private Islamic school in London’s East End.

OFSTED report, written by Mrs. Messaoudi, said it made pupils “aware of their future role as proactive young British Muslim women” and left them “well-prepared for life in a multicultural society”.

However, the Madani Girls’ School’s own website openly states: “If we oppose the lifestyle of the West, then it does not seem sensible that the teachers and the system which represents that lifestyle should educate our children.

” It says that under western education “our children will distance themselves from Islam until there is nothing left but their beautiful names.

Last month,a newspaper revealed how girls at the school were being forced to wear the Islamic veil, a fact that was not mentioned in its 2008 OFSTED report.

The Madani School declined to comment last night.