Andrew Gilligan has a pretty eye-opening account of the infiltration of school inspectors with links to far Right Islamist organisations into the school inspectorate. I’m not going to summarise the article – it bears reading in full.
One particular case is worth a little further comment:
Among the schools directly inspected by Ofsted was the Madani Girls’ School, a private Islamic school in London’s East End.
Its 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, this 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
…
Mrs Messaoudi has written a book published by the Islamic Foundation, Britain’s foremost centre of Islamist intellectual thought.
According to the website of the hardline Islamist “Global Peace and Unity” (GPU) conference, both she and Mr Khan-Cheema were judges for its education awards held last week. GPU is organised by the Islam Channel, a digital TV station which hosts a number of fundamentalist and extremist presenters.
A number of extremists spoke at the GPU event, though moderates also appeared, and items glorifying terrorism were on open sale there. Mrs Messaoudi was also listed as a judge for the 2008 GPU awards.
Mrs Messaoudi declined to comment last night. However, Ofsted, speaking on behalf of Mrs Messaoudi and Mr Khan-Cheema, said they were both “experienced professionals and we have no reason to doubt their ability in conducting inspections”
The sale of the Madani Girls’ School by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was a controversial matter:
Conservative councillors have accused Labour-controlled Tower Hamlets council of subsidising Madani Girls’ School by selling the school its current premises for £320,000 below market value.
In late 2008 the council agreed to sell the Victorian building, previously Grenfell Primary School, to Madani’s trustees for £1.33 million even though a valuation at the time said it was worth £1.65 million.
At the time there were plans to turn Madani into a state-funded Muslim school, one of only a handful in Britain.
The sale of the site was presented to councillors as the “next significant step” towards the school obtaining voluntary aided status. These plans have now stalled, according to the council.
Councillors were advised to allow the sale at a loss because the price had been agreed in 2004 when it represented a fair market value.
The deal had been delayed by four years because the school needed to raise funds, but council chiefs wanted to honour the originally-agreed figure.
However, council minutes from December 2008 show that Tim Archer, a Tory councillor, warned that “a council asset was being sold below market value and public money was being used to subsidise the purchase”.He also suggested the school was in breach of the council’s inclusiveness policy.
Madani, which has 260 pupils, charges fees of £1,900 a year. Its website states: “All payments should be made in cash. We do not accept cheques.”
School uniform rules listed on the website have been deleted but an earlier version, seen by this newspaper, stated: “The present uniform conforms to the Islamic Code of dressing. Outside the school, this comprises of the black Burka and Niqab.”The admission application form warns girls will be “appropriately punished” for failing to wear the correct uniform, and its website adds: “If parents are approached by the Education Department regarding their child’s education, they should not disclose any information without discussing it with the committee.”
So, who was council leader at the time of the sale at an undervalue of this school?
Lutfur Rahman, of course.
I’m told by those who were present at the meeting at which the decision to sell was taken that it was steamrollered through by Lutfur and his Islamic Forum Europe cronies. This was a key moment of clarity for the Labour Party: when it realised that it had been infiltrated and carved out by entryists.
This is one of the reasons that Labour was so desperate to ensure that Lutfur Rahman did not come to power as a Labour Mayor.
