Introduction

Islamic schools in Australia Introduction INTRODUCTION Seek knowledge even if you have to go to China (Hadith)1 General Introduction This thesis examines the development of Islamic schools in Australia since 1983 when the first two schools were established in Melbourne and Sydney. It investigates how the faith-teaching units are taught in the schools, who teaches them and whether or not an Islamic ethos pervades the ‘hidden curriculum’2 as well as the faith units. It considers the allegation that Muslim values are incompatible with Australian values, following allegations by opponents of the schools that they promote intolerance and hatred of other faiths. Finally it examines whether the schools are successful in giving their students a confident identity as young Australian Muslims living in an overwhelmingly secular Western society or whether they are simply creating a ghetto that divides them from other Australians. The first two Islamic schools were opened in Australia almost thirty years ago and today there are over thirty of them. They form a small minority of the growing number of faith schools as Federal Government policy since 1996 has enabled them to get adequate funding to start new ones, but since the attacks on the United States on 11 September 20013, they have faced growing community opposition and hostility. According to the 2006 census data, 20.7 per cent of Muslim students attended Islamic schools4 although in New South Wales, 1 S. Haneef, What everyone should know about Islam and Muslims. Delhi, 1994, p. 162. The original hadith was narrated from Anas by al-Bayhaqi but its authenticity has been disputed. 2 The ‘hidden curriculum’ refers to all the other aspects of the school, including the rest of the curriculum, where the question concerns how much of it is also pervaded by an Islamic ethos as opposed to just being the normal school curriculum followed by all other schools. This concept is further explored in Chapter 6. 3 The significance of the attacks on the United States cannot be over-emphasised for many Muslims in the West. As one of the schoolgirls interviewed by Scott Poynting in Sydney said to him, ‘9/11 changed everything… September 11 was the worst day for Muslims around the world,’ Scott Poynting, ‘The ‘Lost’ Girls: Muslim Young Women in Australia,’ Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol.30, no.4, 2009, p. 383 4 Figure quoted by Jennifer Buckingham in The Rise of Religious Schools, Centre for Independent Studies Policy Monograph 111, St Leonard’s, NSW, 2010, p. 6. 1 Islamic schools in Australia Introduction where almost half of Australia’s Muslims live, the figure is only 10 per cent5. The national figure increased from nine per cent of Muslim students in 1996 to almost 21 per cent by 2006, or in terms of numbers, from 4,274 to 14, 2536. For Muslim parents, there is the question of whether or not these schools are providing their children with the appropriate Islamic education that they seek and whether an Islamic ethos pervades the whole curriculum rather than just covering the faith-teaching units7. Opposition to new Islamic schools or the expansion of existing schools has often been expressed in recent years through the Australian values debate, initiated by the Howard Coalition government in 2003. Much has been written on this subject and the debate culminated in the release of the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools setting out the list of nine Australian values8. These were displayed on a poster and sent to every school in Australia (see Appendix Three). As outlined in the two chapters on the issue, the values debate has been conducted equally acrimoniously in Europe where, as in Australia, it has now become a debate on multiculturalism, with the critics of this policy showing their predilections by calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration. In Australia, as in several other countries, such as Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands, the values debate led to the creation of a citizenship test administered to anyone wishing to become a citizen of their new country.9 Many Muslims, as well as critics of the Islamic schools, have expressed fears that what they are really creating are ghettos that isolate the students from mainstream Australian society. The schools themselves argue that their purpose is to create Australian Muslims rather than merely Muslims in Australia and give their students faith in their identity so that they can confidently thrive as a religious minority in a predominantly secular society. 5 ‘Islamic Schools in NSW’, Sydney, The Association of Independent Schools of NSW, 2006, p.5 6 Buckingham, p. 5 7 Two pieces of earlier research on the Islamic schools in Melbourne by Begum and Donohoue Clyne took the expectations of parents into consideration and are referred to in more detail later in this thesis. 8 Released in May 2005 by the Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson. 9 Sue Wright, ‘Citizenship Tests in Europe – Editorial Introduction’, in ‘Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era’, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, UNESCO, Paris, vol. 10, no 1, 2008, pp. 1-9 2 Islamic schools in Australia Introduction Background to the Islamic schools in Australia Most Muslim students in Australia attend state schools but apart from the private Islamic schools, three alternatives that exist for them are other Independent schools, in particular Catholic schools that are often single sex, 10 home schooling,11 or being sent overseas to schools in Muslim majority countries in Asia or the Middle East. Here the question is raised as to whether the Islamic schools are in any way different from the other faith schools such as those in the Catholic education system. The tradition of independent faith schools is well established in Australia but in recent years has been followed by a rapidly increasing number of conservative Christian options as well as a variety of other traditions and denominations. As noted earlier, the first two Islamic schools started in 1983 in Melbourne and Sydney, which is hardly surprising as over 80 per cent of Muslims in Australia live in these two cities12. Many Muslim families were keen for their children to be educated in an Islamic environment rather than the state education system where religion was traditionally left out of the syllabus or just treated as an option. The education system and curriculum also reflects Australia’s Euro-centric origins. There were several problems facing the early schools. These included lack of knowledge of the procedures involved in setting up a new independent school, obtaining adequate funding, finding a competent principal and trained staff, and getting planning permission for the school. The situation improved after new funding measures introduced by the Howard government in 1996 that were designed to encourage the creation of small faith schools, although these were overwhelmingly conservative Christian schools. The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) set out to build a new school in each of the capital cities but owing to the diversity of the Muslim community in Australia, other schools were established by a mixture of individuals, organisations, trusts, and associations. Given the obstacles and difficulties, some did not last very long. Several of the schools faced local community hostility when it came to getting planning permission as all kinds of 10 Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, Oxford, 2004, p.130. 11 Sally Neighbour, ‘A class of their own,’ The Australian, June 19, 2009. There is also a Muslim Home Schools network website: www.muslimhomeschool.net 12 See Muslim population figures in Chapter 2. 3 Islamic schools in Australia Introduction strategies were employed to prevent them starting up13, a similar experience to that faced by Muslim associations seeking to open a new mosque. Nonetheless the schools have continued to grow in number as the Muslim community has grown and today there are over thirty of them in six cities. They have faced increasing community opposition, particularly since the events of September 2001, but most schools have waiting lists and since some of the schools reached Year 12 classes, several of their alumni have returned as staff. Existing research on Islamic schools In Australia, while much has been written about the history of private schools, the struggle of the Catholic schools for acceptance, and the older more established Jewish schools, very little has been written about the Islamic schools. Of the four theses that focused on the schools, three were set in Melbourne and one in Sydney. Only one was written in the last decade and it focused on only two schools in Sydney. This point about lack of research on the education of Muslim children was made by Donohoue Clyne14, in addition to Berber’s later research when he made the same point in his thesis on the role of the principal in establishing and further developing an independent Christian or Islamic school in Australia.15 Saeed has a concise chapter on Islamic Schools in ‘Islam in Australia’16 and Buckley has written a fairly lengthy though now dated article on the schools but with limited circulation.17 Donohoue Clyne has a chapter on ‘Educating Muslim Children in Australia’ as part of a series of contributions from various writers in 13 The most recent example was a new campus extension of Malek Fahd Islamic College at Hoxton Park in Sydney being brought to a halt when the local Residents Action Group persuaded the Land and Environment Court to overturn the Liverpool Council’s earlier decision in favour of it in 2009. The ostensible reason was that the Council had failed properly to consider the environmental impacts of the development. By then, the school had opened for about 100 students from K-3 who were already attending classes in demountable buildings and more permanent buildings were under construction (23 March 2012).

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