Christopher Barnekov, director of Scandinavia House in Fort Wayne, Indiana, sends a report on a new Swedish law restricting home schooling and thereby restricting religious freedom as well. He asks that I mention that this is “first look at a very complex development” and based on newspaper reports.
Sweden’s Riksdag adopted a complex, 1500 page school law on June 22. Only vague outlines have appeared in the press, but the reports are alarming. The new law apparently makes home schooling almost impossible and removes religious motivations as an allowable basis for home schooling. Home schools were already severely limited in Sweden. (For a particularly shocking case, see this.)
The new law also appears to restrict religious schools sharply and limit severely the extent to which they can incorporate faith in their curriculum.
These matters are less than clear and have received little discussion in the Swedish press. What is clear is that the law is very long and very poorly written (Sweden is not, of course, the only country in which long, complex, poorly written laws have been adopted this year). Sweden has a law review council (lagrådet) that reviews proposed laws.
In March this council severely criticized the proposed school law, stating that it had so many shortcomings it should not even have been submitted for review. The council noted that several provisions appeared to violate Sweden’s Constitution (grundlag) and many provisions were highly ambiguous. In particular, it grants broad new powers to the government to regulate schools. (Here is the Dagens Nyheter article in Swedish.)
The Education Minister had described the law as promoting “knowledge, freedom of choice, and security,” but it appears to restrict freedom of choice severely, especially concerning religious issues, and to impose a high degree of uniformity on all schools. Private schools will apparently be forced to become identical to government schools, although there is also language suggesting that Confessional schools may continue to exist. From what I have seen in a brief skimming of an early draft of the law (1029 pages in Swedish), it appears to be a law that could have been drafted in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Although the press reports do not mention this (such a mention would be most politically incorrect in Sweden), it is likely that the new law is aimed largely at the rapidly growing Muslim schools. If these resemble Muslim schools in other countries, they are probably controlled by radical Islamists … but no Swedish journalist would dare write such a thing.
Because the new law is so unclear, it is not clear to what extent it will affect schools such as the Lutheran High School in Gothenburg (L.M. Engströms Gymnasiet). It does clearly vastly increase the government’s powers, however, and the next time a (more) leftist government takes power one can expect it to use these powers against believers.
There is also considerable information in English about the home schooling aspects of the new law at the website of the Swedish Home Schooling Association (ROHUS) .
Dr. Barnekov will be posting updates on the Scandinavia House website, which is a very helpful, and perhaps unique, source of information on Christianity and other matters in Scandinavia.
July 1st, 2010 | 6:31 pm
Almost all children now believe they go to school to pass exams. The idea that they may be there for an education is irrelevant. State schools have become exam factories, interested only in A to C Grades. They do not educate children. Exam results do not reflect a candidate’s innate ability. Employers have moaned for years that too many employees cannot read or write properly. According to a survey, school-leavers and even graduates lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. More and more companies are having to provide remedial training to new staff, who can’t write clear instructions, do simple maths, or solve problems. Both graduates and school-leavers were also criticised for their sloppy time-keeping, ignorance of basic customer service and lack of self-discipline.
Bilingual Muslims children have a right, as much as any other faith group, to be taught their culture, languages and faith alongside a mainstream curriculum. More faith schools will be opened under sweeping reforms of the education system in England. There is a dire need for the growth of state funded Muslim schools to meet the growing needs and demands of the Muslim parents and children. Now the time has come that parents and community should take over the running of their local schools. Parent-run schools will give the diversity, the choice and the competition that the wealthy have in the private sector. Parents can perform a better job than the Local Authority because parents have a genuine vested interest. The Local Authority simply cannot be trusted.
The British Government is planning to make it easier to schools to “opt out” from the Local Authorities. Muslim children in state schools feel isolated and confused about who they are. This can cause dissatisfaction and lead them into criminality, and the lack of a true understanding of Islam can ultimately make them more susceptible to the teachings of fundamentalists like Christians during the middle ages and Jews in recent times in Palestine. Fundamentalism is nothing to do with Islam and Muslim; you are either a Muslim or a non-Muslim.
There are hundreds of state primary and secondary schools where Muslim pupils are in majority. In my opinion all such schools may be opted out to become Muslim Academies. This mean the Muslim children will get a decent education. Muslim schools turned out balanced citizens, more tolerant of others and less likely to succumb to criminality or extremism. Muslim schools give young people confidence in who they are and an understanding of Islam’s teaching of tolerance and respect which prepares them for a positive and fulfilling role in society. Muslim schools are attractive to Muslim parents because they have better discipline and teaching Islamic values. Children like discipline, structure and boundaries. Bilingual Muslim children need Bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods, who understand their needs and demands.
None of the British Muslims convicted following the riots in Bradford and Oldham in 2001 or any of those linked to the London bombings had been to Islamic schools. An American Think Tank studied the educational back ground of 300 Jihadists; none of them were educated in Pakistani Madrasas. They were all Western educated by non-Muslim teachers. Bilingual Muslim children need bilingual Muslim teachers as role models. A Cambridge University study found that single-sex classes could make a big difference for boys. They perform better in single-sex classes. The research is promising because male students in the study saw noticeable gains in the grades. The study confirms the Islamic notion that academic achievement is better in single-sex classes.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk