Mercy Muroki: I don’t want to see children getting indoctrinated with extremist ideologies

A Muslim head teacher is facing jail for continuing to run an illegal Islamic private school despite being convicted of running the school out of a run-down building back in September 2019.

Ofsted, the schools inspector, found material at the school encouraging parents to hit their children if they did not pray, materials saying a woman had no right to deny sex to her husband.

Now, let's be honest, many of these schools are effectively a way to indoctrinate children.

But what was the sentence for Nadia Ali, from South London, back in 2019 for illegally setting up this school? £1000 quid and 5 days community service.

Pathetic.

Which is why we shouldn’t be surprised that Ms Ali got the school back up and running almost immediately after she was handed sentence.

Now, not that it isn’t blindingly obvious but we don’t take this sort of thing seriously enough. Ofsted clearly needs more powers to crack down on illegal faith schools and our sentencing laws need to stop taking the British public for mugs.

I mean, there were so many red flags before this school even opened.

The school literally failed a pre-registration inspection by Ofsted.

The school had not even conducted the most basic checks on teachers working at the school.

Unsurprisingly, inspectors also found that the school had no plan in place to promote British values, something that ALL schools have a legal duty to actively promote.

But what worries me is the complete lack of power to actually do anything about it!

Ofsted has flagged almost 300 suspected illegal schools since 2016, and estimate that up to 6000 are taught in them.

And most of the illegal FAITH schools are Islamic.

Despite this, only a few prosecutions have ever been made.

The people who run them know how to exploit legal loopholes, know Ofsted have little power, and know if they get caught, it’s a slap on the wrist and you’ll be on your way.

We’re facing a very uncertain future – the defence secretary Ben Wallace has already warned of a surge in terrorism plots against Britain, as the Taliban take over Afghanistan.

20,000 pupils have already fallen off the school roll during the pandemic, God knows where they'll end up.

Now, I’m not against faith schools - if we can regulate them, make sure children aren't being indoctrinated, and if the law can come down hard on rogue educators who break the rules...then fine.

But I don’t want to see a single child growing up in this country, getting indoctrinated with extremist ideologies, with sketchy teachers with dodgy views.

I don’t want to see a single child being taught to be sympathetic with those who wish to destroy our way of life, and those who abhor our values.