Education, education, education. How's that going? Let's take a snapshot of the state of our schools. For instance, here's three stories from the past few days. Official figures revealed that nearly half of all children from low-income families fail to achieve a single pass at GCSE. More than 42 per cent of the 75,000 pupils entitled to free lunches last year could not manage a single 'C' grade in any subject, which is the minimum level recognised by potential employers. As many as 7,500 of them are classified as 'persistent truants'. They left school virtually unemployable, fit only for a life on benefits or a career in crime. These were the very children Labour came to office promising a better future, pledging to raise them out of a cycle of permanent low achievement.Pervez Latif removed his two sons from school during Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History MonthTwelve years on and billions of pounds squandered later, they're still bottom of the heap. Yesterday, another report showed that despite the Holocaust supposedly being an integral part of the National Curriculum, an alarming number of secondary-school children think Auschwitz is a brand of beer. Six out of ten had never heard of the Final Solution. They probably think it's some kind of washing powder. Against this horrifying backdrop, you might think any drive to elevate history teaching in schools and clamp down on truants would be welcome. So, on the face of it, you'd applaud the decision by Waltham Forest Council to prosecute parents who fail to send their children to school. More than 30 pupils were absent without leave last week at the George Tomlinson Primary School, in Leytonstone, East London, one of the country's most deprived areas. Waltham Forest is treating this as mass truancy and says parents could be dragged into court, fined and forced to sign parenting contracts. But these aren't the usual feckless mothers and absentee fathers content to let their children bunk off school. They are deeply moral and religious people who object to their children being force-fed homosexual propaganda in the classroom. As such, they exercised their right to withdraw their sons and daughters from lessons 'celebrating' Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. Pervez Latif, a 41-year-old accountant, kept his nine and ten-year-old sons at home and is now facing prosecution. He wrote to the chairman of the school governors, but his protests were ignored. Sarah Saed, 40, withdrew her eight-year-old daughter with great reluctance. It was the first blemish on her 100 per cent attendance record. 'This was the only choice I had,' she said. 'It is not an appropriate age for children to be learning about homosexual relationships.' As the law stands, parents have the legal right to exempt their children from religious education and sex lessons. That's why this is being smuggled in under the radar in the guise of 'history'. Yet the 'lessons' on offer include a story called King & King - about a prince who turns down three princesses before falling in love with their brother - and another featuring a pair of gay penguins at a New York zoo. Regular readers may remember these fairy stories from a couple of years ago, when they were part of a £600,000 government-sponsored project designed to peddle gay propaganda to children as young as five. What has any of this got to do with 'history'? It's about as historical as Andy Pandy. (Come to think of it, I'm surprised the relationship between Andy and Teddy isn't being explored as part of gay history month. Goodness knows what they got up to in that box.) And why a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender month, anyway? Why not a Foot Fetishists, Spankers, Sadists and Masochists History Month? Risibly, Waltham Forest said that action was being taken against the parents as part of a policy of 'promoting tolerance'. So why not tolerate parents who, for sincerely-held reasons, consider their children too young to be taught about gay relationships? That's because when it comes to so-called tolerance, the new, intolerant state religion of 'diversity' trumps the old religions any day of the week. Parents who choose to tell their children about homosexuality only when they feel the time is right have to be pummelled into submission, using the full might of the law if necessary. This isn't education, it's cultural fascism. As I've written before, I have no problem with homosexuality being discussed in secondary schools. But not with children who won't even hit puberty for another few years. Let them enjoy their innocence, for heaven's sake. And what about some respect for decent, law-abiding parents, trying to bring up their children in line with their own belief system? Instead of hounding caring mums and dads like Pervez Latif and Sarah Saed, the education establishment should be targeting the tens of thousands of selfish, wastrel parents who never send their children to school. Rather than filling the heads of impressionable boys and girls with fatuous drivel about gay penguins, schools should be ashamed of the fact that they are sending children out into the world barely able to read, write and add up properly. Labour's deranged obsession with social engineering over genuine education has betrayed an entire generation, especially those unfortunate enough not to be blessed with conscientious, loving parents like Pervez Latif and Sarah Saed. Is it any wonder some leave school unable to tell the difference between a concentration camp and a can of lager?The article is an eye opening for those who keep on sending their children to state schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by the non-Muslim monolingual teachers. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school.There are hundreds of state and Church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools.
Iftikhar Ahmad ● 6404d