SCOTLAND is to get its first state-funded Muslim school within the next parliament if the Scottish National party wins power in May.
Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, has pledged to extend the right to denominational education, already enjoyed by Catholics, to other faiths.
If the Nationalists emerge as the biggest party in the Scottish parliament, Salmond will instruct Glasgow council, the local authority covering Scotland’s biggest Muslim communities, to ensure that demands from Muslim parents for faith schools are met.
Of Scotland’s 2,769 state-funded schools, 401 are Roman Catholic, one is Jewish and four are Episcopalian.
“We must listen to representations from within the Muslim community, in particular, and make a full assessment of the demand for Muslim schools,” said Salmond.
“We already have the good example of the success of Scotland’s Catholic schools and our successful Jewish school. My experience, strengthened by speaking to people around Scotland, is that our diversity as a nation is also one of our strengths.
“As a starting point I think we need honest criteria agreed and, if there is sustainable demand from within the community, move ahead with a pilot project within the state sector. I feel certain that this is the best way forward on this issue.”
The issue has ignited passions in some neighbourhoods, with Muslim parents removing their children from worship at a Roman Catholic school where 80% of pupils are Muslim.
The row at St Albert’s Primary, in Glasgow, flared up last year when a group of parents repeatedly interrupted the religious service to pick up their children and take them home.
The Campaign for Muslim Schools (CMS) said it was unacceptable that pupils of parents who exercise their right to withdraw their children from worship are left sitting at the back of the assembly hall with a book.
They argue it is discriminatory not to offer the Muslim community their own publicly funded schools that would reduce religious tensions in Scotland.
Glasgow city council has told campaigners it would consider consulting the public about the general principle of creating a Muslim primary school if a “well-developed proposal with considerable widespread community support came forward”.
But Salmond and other campaigners are concerned about the lack of progress.
Other party leaders refused to help Muslim campaigners. Murdo Fraser, the deputy Scottish Tory leader, said Muslim schools could aggravate religious tensions which have grown in recent years.
“The concern is that creating more faith schools is divisive and not in the interests of societal cohesion,” he said.
A spokesman for Jack McConnell said the issue should remain for local councils to decide and that he would not intervene.
A source close to Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Liberal Democrats leader, said the existing laws already allowed Muslim state schools to be created so long as they met acceptable standards.
Osama Saeed of the CMS said it was “ridiculous if funding were to continue to go to other faiths but not on Islamic schools”, adding: “I think it will happen sooner rather than later by the force of numbers, but I would like to see far more leadership from politicians on the issue rather than just saying it is up to councils to decide.”
He denied Muslim schools would be divisive. “It is not about segregation. They would be open to non-Muslims too.
“We are looking for an Islamic ethos which means the environment and culture of the school would be Islamic but the emphasis would not be so much on Islamic studies or the Arabic language.”
Scrapping call
LORD MAXTON, the Labour peer, is the latest senior politician to call for denominational schools to be scrapped, claiming they spread sectarianism.
The party’s former Scottish affairs spokesman and MP for Cathcart said separate schools fostered intolerance. His call to phase out denominational schools follows interventions from Sam Galbraith, the former education minister, and Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader.
“Faith schools both contribute to a divide between Protestants and Catholics and perpetuate it,” said Maxton.
“If we were to get rid of denominational schools, over time sectarianism in our society would diminish. Ideally, denominational schools would be scrapped tomorrow, but I realise it will take time.
“If I had my way, if there were two schools, one Catholic and one non-denominational, then they would merge into a new non-denominational school.”
The issue was raised at a sectarian summit hosted by Jack McConnell, the first minister, earlier this month at which Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, complained of “anti-Catholicism” in the media.
Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, makes an impassioned defence of denominational schools in an article on today’s online version of The Sunday Times.
