THE first minister has signalled his support for the creation of separate Muslim schools in Scotland. Jack McConnell is also in favour of the inclusion of Islamic studies in the school curriculum.

Ministers and Scottish executive officials have been discussing how to accommodate the Muslim community more successfully into the education system following demands from Muslim leaders for equal treatment with Catholics, who have their own denominational schools.

The Muslim community is in talks with councils in Glasgow and East Renfrewshire about the possibility of state-backed schools but the executive had until now stayed out of the debate, saying only that any decision was a matter for local authorities.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that officials have been instructed to accommodate the Muslim community.

A letter from Ben Haynes of the Scottish executive’s education department, on behalf of McConnell, states that the executive will support any local authority wishing to create separate Muslim schools.

It says: “We believe faith schools have an important role to play in educating children. Any faith can ask the local education authority to establish a school to be run along particular faith lines. The local education authority would not have to agree to such a request, but in considering it they would have to take into account the principle that children should be educated in line with their parents’ wishes.”

The support of ministers was welcomed by Osama Saeed, a spokesman for the Campaign for Muslim Schools (CMS).

“There is a large demand from parents within the Muslim community for this because they want to see a school with a Muslim atmosphere, culture and ethos, which is a very different model of school from what we currently see available,” he said. “If the executive supports its ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures’ campaign it means we should have a diverse range of education.

“It is immensely frustrating for the community, which is suffering from epidemic levels of Islamophobia, that we don’t already have that.”

Campaigners are concerned at a lack of support from local authorities for state-funded Muslim primary schools.

Steven Purcell, leader of Glasgow city council, met the CMS recently and asked it to submit plans. But the council has said any plans must be judged by officials to have educational merit as well as command the support of the public.

There are also concerns about whether Glasgow city council would be prepared to fund such a project after a freeze in council tax bills contributed to tighter financial constraints on the local authority.

The Scottish Catholic church has said it would welcome the creation of state-funded Muslim schools. Earlier this year Muslim parents withdrew their children from a religious service at St Albert’s Roman Catholic primary school in Pollokshields, Glasgow. It followed demands for the school to change its faith because most of its 300 pupils are Islamic.

The action prompted Father John Gannon, the parish priest who celebrated the mass, to describe the Muslim parents as “extremists”. The parents, in turn, accused him of potentially inciting “religious and racial hatred”.

Many Muslim parents send their children to Catholic schools because they believe that they offer a better moral environment than non-denominational schools. However, they are uncomfortable with their children participating in Catholic services.

Scotland’s only Muslim school, the privately run Imam Muhammad Zakariya school in Broughty Ferry, recently shut down voluntarily in the wake of severe criticisms by inspectors over recent years.

Ronnie Smith, general secretary of the Education Institute for Scotland, said: “We have argued in favour of the abolition of faith schools but with the consent of the churches. We would not be supportive of the development of separate Muslim schools. We believe in local neighbourhood multi-faith schools.”

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