London: United Kingdom’s Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has started consultations with Muslim campaigners following outrage over its decision to question Muslim school girls about their reasons to wear hijabs.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Ofsted has confirmed that Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector, met a group of Muslim women last week to discuss the rising number of primary schools introducing hijab as part of their uniform dress code for girls.
“This was a matter of concern to the group given that, traditionally, the hijab is not worn until girls reach puberty, as a mark of modesty as they become young women,” the spokesperson has said.
Further explaining the decision to engage Muslim campaigners, the Ofsted spokesman has said, “we intend to hold further discussions with our inspector workforce and with groups such as the Association of Muslim Schools, school leaders and individual MPs as we develop our guidance for inspectors on this sensitive matter in a considered way.”
The meeting between Ofsted and the Muslim women campaigners came in the aftermath of Spielman’s announcement in November that U.K school inspectors had been instructed to investigate Muslim primary school girls – some as young as four-years-old – about their decision to wear the hijab. She explained that she had made the decision to prevent ‘an environment where primary school children are expected to wear the hijab. This could be interpreted as sexualisation of young girls’.
The decision had sparked condemnation from faith leaders, academics and over a thousand school teachers who termed it ‘a kneejerk, discriminatory and institutionally racist response’.
An open letter signed by 1,136 faith leaders, teachers and academics in response to Ofsted’s decision had warned that the decision will ‘violate civil liberties and create a climate of fear and mistrust in schools, and must be retracted immediately’.
The letter called on Ofsted to provide evidence of research to substantiate its claims. “Ofsted has provided no evidence that some children wearing the hijab creates an environment where ‘school children are expected to wear the hijab’, or that this ‘could be interpreted as the sexualisation of young girls,” it said.
Further, the Ofsted decision heightened concerns in the Muslim community that the U.K schools watchdog was discriminating on the basis of race, religion, and gender. “While a wider conversation about the sexualisation of girls in Britain’s culture and economy is welcome, the singling out of Muslim children for investigation is unacceptable.”
Spellman’s, surprise announcement in November had been preceded by a meeting with campaigners against the hijab. In September, these campaigners sent an open letter to The Sunday Times, a U.K newspaper, seeking protection of Britain’s ‘hard-won freedoms’. The campaigners labelled the rise of the hijab among the children as an ‘affront’ to the historical fight for gender equality and called for its ban.
Following the 2014 ‘Trojan Horse’ incident in Birmingham, the Ofsted’s decision on hijab – the recommendation to inspectors, rather than an update to the inspectorate’s official handbook – has been seen by many in the British Muslim community as just the latest in a series of discriminatory restrictions towards Muslim schools by the watchdog. The Trojan Horse incident had stoked fears amongst the British public about Islamist influence in state schools. Although the claims were later debunked, the damage remained.
Meanwhile, Muslim parents of children at Clifton school in Birmingham where girls as young as four- or five-years-old wear the hijab had mixed reactions to the Ofsted’s recommendations.
Elham Kassim, mother of a six-year-old, welcomed the decision. “Our daughter is too young to wear the hijab, but she wants to wear it because her friends do,” she said. She expressed her dismay with parents who encourage young girls to wear the hijab. “It makes young girls aware of their sexuality, robs their innocence, makes them aware of adult issues,” she said. However, Mr Hussain whose five-year-old daughter wears a hijab said, “the hijab is part of our Muslim identity and this decision shows again how they [Ofsted] discriminate against Muslims.”
His views were also echoed by the Muslim Council of Britain secretary-general Harun Khan in his public response to Ofsted’s move. “It is deeply worrying that Ofsted has announced it will be specifically targeting and quizzing young Muslim girls who choose to wear the headscarf.
“It sends a clear message to all British women who adopt this that they are second-class citizens, that while they are free to wear the headscarf, the establishment would prefer that they do not,” he said.
“Many British Muslims who choose to wear the headscarf have done extremely well in education and are breaking glass ceilings.”
Published in Daily Times, December 13th 2017.