Good idea...why have the fox police the henhouse? B http://tinyurl.com/5csc3e
Government drops plan to allow Muslim schools to police themselves Government plans to give Muslim schools the chance to police themselves have effectively been dropped. By Graeme Paton, Education Editor Last Updated: 6:51PM BST 21 Jul 2008 Under proposals unveiled earlier this year private Muslim schools were to be given the chance to carry out their own Ofsted-style inspections. It was announced a new independent watchdog would be set up to be more "sensitive" toward Islamic education and the new body would also inspect a small number of independent Christian schools. But now Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, has effectively vetoed the plan. It follows warnings from Ofsted, the official schools inspectorate, that the move would cause "increased fragmentation" and "works against any consistent approach to national standards". Under present legislation, most state and private schools are directly inspected by Ofsted. But the Association of Muslim Schools and the Christian Schools' Trust applied to the Government to set up a separate inspectorate for a small number of private faith schools. The Department for Children, Schools and Families approved outline plans for the so-called Bridge Schools' Inspectorate in January, giving it the power to inspect about 60 private Muslim schools and 50 Christian schools. The decision came despite concerns that some private faith schools are already failing to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain. But in a parliamentary statement, Mr Balls admitted that the narrow focus of such small watchdogs may undermine public confidence in the education system. He said any future inspectorates should be responsible for a minimum of 350 schools to prevent inspectors "becoming over-familiar" with particular types of school. Christine Gilbert, head of Ofsted, said: "We believe it would be difficult for an organisation to form an objective view of the quality of schools inspected if it dealt with only one type of school and therefore lacked a broad perspective." However, the changes will not affect the Independent Schools Inspectorate, which currently vets more than 1,000 leading fee-paying schools, including Eton and Harrow. Michael Gove, Tory shadow schools secretary, said: "This is highly significant and very welcome u-turn by the Government. "I am pleased that they have taken on board the need to improve the inspection regime and ensure that certain schools don't effectively police themselves." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
