Category: blog

I have stayed well out of the media-driven ‘Operation Trojan Horse’ ‘debate’ being conducted about education in Birmingham. The only exception has been to write an article for the next issue of Race Equality Teaching, which I did upon receiving an invitation from the journal’s editors. Even then I make only a passing reference to the goings-on, based on the saying: ‘keep quiet until you have something useful to say’.

 I have extensively researched this area of education, given my doctoral research into education of Pakistani boys in Birmingham. Amongst the many hundreds (probably thousands by now) of documents I have consulted, have been reports and papers produced by Muslim education experts.

 Reading the front-page of the Daily Telegraph, I was perplexed to read a reference to a ‘blueprint’ which had been produced by Mr Tahir Alam in 2007. Thinking that my research had not gone far or deep enough, I investigated. I needn’t have worried.

 The document in question was: ‘Towards Greater Understanding- Meeting the needs of Muslim pupils in state schools’. It was published by the Muslim Council of Britain.

 The document was launched in front of many respected education policy makers and practitioners. Alongside Tahir Alam, amongst the attendees was Professor Sir Tim Brighouse. Just so that we are clear about this “Blueprint for Islamisation of state schools“, this is what he had said when commending the guidance to educationalists:

 “I would ask anybody to read this document and to say, well which is the bit of this document that you don’t agree with? I started by saying that I am not a person of faith, a religious faith. I have read that document and agree with almost all of it, there is nothing in it to which I would not assent. It is something that I think all educators should take seriously… I think it is a superb document and I thank you for it… Every school in the country needs to have this and I appeal to the Teachers’ Unions in this country to give their full backing to this document. They will ensure that their teachers have a better opportunity of unlocking the talent of everybody in this country, if they take it seriously.”

 It is worth pointing out here that at the time of its publication, the document was the subject of fair amount of mis-reporting, which was ably summarised by Robin Richardson, in the very same Race Equality Teaching.

 Acknowledging that “faith is extraordinarily important in many people’s lives” Professor Brighouse had said at the launch:

 “I could tell you 500 schools in Birmingham would welcome this document and that’s in Birmingham alone. And I can tell you another 3,000 schools in London would welcome this document. I read it cover to cover. I think its fantastic document.”

 He went on:

 “We need document such as this from all faith positions and I hope people from different faiths would read this document and make sure that the schooling system has references this point. i.e. that they can use in their schools.” 

 The National Association of Head Teachers discussed the above document at its meeting of the Race and Cultural Diversity Committee on 15 March 2007, as follows:

 “The Chair reported on the Launch of “Towards Greater Understanding: meeting the needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools” and reflected on the expressions of support from Tim Brighouse that this reference document provided a challenge to all faiths to provide helpful support for schools.  It was noted that there had been a lot of press coverage, with some misrepresentation; a communication had subsequently been received at headquarters.  A long and energetic discussion followed.”

 To provide some background, Birmingham was one of the first education authorities to agree a syllabus, in 1975, on multi-faith Religious Education. It continued to be a pioneer when it published, in 1988, ‘Guidelines on Meeting the Religious and Cultural Needs of Muslim Pupils’.

 In his role as the Chief Education Officer of Birmingham, Tim Brighouse (as he was then) had said the following in introducing the guidelines:

 “I am delighted to know that the Muslim Liaison Committee (MLC) in Birmingham has produced this revised booklet ‘Guidelines on Meeting the Religious and Cultural Needs of Muslim Pupils’ which they intend to circulate to schools. I believe it will certainly be useful both for general information and help while planning programmes of study.

 It was good to see that the revised booklet includes many more suggestions and recommendations. These should help to enhance the status of Muslim pupils through clear and better understanding of their social values both in teaching and learning. It may well help to raise their profile in schools within the realm of Education Reform Acts 1988 and 1991.

 I would recommend schools to consider these guidelines for meeting the needs of their Muslim pupils and make good use of them.”

 Meanwhile, the ‘debate’ surrounding Trojan Horse continues, with now four investigations on the way.

You are invited to come on a walk and help to raise funds for Karam, the charity set up to improve education of children in Kashmir.

Each walker is expected to contribute £10, plus any money you are able to raise through sponsorship.

Details

The plan is to meet and park at Queensbridge School, Queensbridge Road, Birmingham 13, at 8am.

We will travel to Stratford in the minibus (and cars if necessary) and then walk, along the canal, back to Birmingham.

There will be an opportunity to stop on the way; for rest and refreshment.

You can do as much of the 20 mile walk as you would like. We can pick you up along the way, as necessary, and transport you back to Queensbridge. Or if your car is parked in Stratford, you can turn back on the walk when you’ve had enough.

Iqbal’s book is an extended thank-you letter, almost an extended love letter. It is not, however, just one long outpouring of gratitude and affection. The city which he holds dear can be disappointing and deplorable, a hell-hole as well as a haven, a place of negligence and neglect as well as a nest, woeful as well as wonderful. Iqbal loves his fellow citizens of all backgrounds. But also he wants change, and wants it radically, deeply, urgently. He wants and seeks justice and equality, and wants them for all communities in Birmingham – not only the newer communities which have settled there in the last sixty years but also those whose ancestors settled in the city rather earlier.

The story of Iqbal’s life in Birmingham has much in common with that of thousands of other British Pakistani people in the city, and in many other cities and towns in Britain as well, particularly in the midlands and the north. His father was a near contemporary of the young men who landed at Tilbury from the SS Windrush in June 1948. His journey and adventure, however, were from the east not the west. He and his friends lived in all-male households desperately working night shifts in the industries which flourished, to quote lines from a Birmingham school song, ‘where the iron heart of England throbs beneath its sombre robe’. The wages and conditions on offer to them were not acceptable to those who had been settled in Birmingham for rather longer, and they met Paki-bashing and Keep Britain White campaigns on the streets; and from the local public sector they met exclusion, neglect and rejection. (Though Birmingham did eventually get round to appointing a ‘Liaison Officer for Coloured People’.) Their children, in due course, were not properly catered for in the city’s schools. They are the heroes, those early pioneers, in the background of this book. The book would not have been possible without their struggle, resolution, solidarity with each other, survival.

By the 1980s things were beginning to change, at least at the level of policy discourse and documentation. In Birmingham’s education system, for example, there were multicultural and antiracist projects led by the late David Ruddell and Birmingham was one of the first authorities to take seriously, or begin to take seriously, the concerns and requirements of its Muslim citizens. In the 1990s and after 2000 there were many fine and warm words spoken by the city’s leaders and managers about the need to treat all people equally. Targets were set for creating greater diversity in the workforces of public bodies – the police, health service, schools and colleges, public administration, and so on. The warm words brought a glow when they were first uttered and proclaimed. They look now, Iqbal shows, hollow and even hypocritical in the extreme, for people of Pakistani heritage continue to be excluded from the city’s public life. Iqbal painfully juxtaposes the warm words of policy-makers with the stark data he has painstakingly collected for this book through a series of Freedom of Information requests.

The book as a whole is addressed to all Iqbal’s fellow citizens – white as well as black and South Asian – and is concerned with the public good generally, not just with the good of, for example, Pakistanis. It is offered as a contribution to reflection and conversation, not as a manifesto. The political giant inspiring it is Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The intellectual giant is Edward Said. The author also pays tribute to political philosophers such as Bhikhu Parekh and Tariq Modood.

There are four sections. The first tells the author’s personal story and interweaves it with the story of Pakistani Birmingham. The second provides population statistics and employment data in the public sector. The third and longest discusses the underlying issues that need to be addressed. It is not just a question of treating people equally, the author argues, but also of recognising the distinctive concerns and values of different communities, and their distinctive experiences of racism. The fourth proposes challenging principles and action points for making dear Birmingham a better – or rather, an even better – great place.

Review of Dear Birmingham: a conversation with my hometown by Karamat Iqbal, Xlibris Corporation:  http://www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=304943, 2013, ISBN 978-14836-1278-2, 228 pp, £13.99

The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Social Mobility has published a report (Paterson, Tyler and Lexmond 2014) which has placed the development of character and resilience centre stage for young people’s education.

They set out to answer a number of questions. Why do some talented children grow up to fulfil their ambitions and become leaders in any number of fields, while others never realise their full potential? What can be done to help more people succeed in life?  How do we create a UK in which a person’s life chances are determined by their talent, not the circumstances of their birth? In conclusion their “research findings all point to the same conclusion: “character counts.” Experts from across the board pointed out to them: “whatever qualifications you might have, where you are on the character scale will have a big impact on what you can achieve in life”.

The report has drawn attention to the current realities within our education system where education is often seen as synonymous with achievement of benchmark grades at GCSE. For the APPG, if the education system also focussed, on what they refer to as ‘’soft skills’, it would enable young people to leave school and university much better equipped.

The report has recommended that Ofsted should factor ‘extra’-curricular activities more explicitly into the inspection framework and the participation in such activities should become a formal aspect of teachers’ contracts of employment.

Possibility of funding

The Education Secretary Michael Gove said in a speech recently:

“As top heads and teachers already know, sports clubs, orchestras and choirs, school plays, cadets, debating competitions all help to build character and instil grit, to give children’s talents an opportunity to grow and to allow them to discover new talents they never knew they had” .

Although much of what is in the report has been known already, it is to be welcome that the current government has decided to devote its attention to this essential aspect of learning.

The previous government had also prioritised this matter, in a ten year strategy document (DCSF 2007). It was acknowledged that how young people spent their leisure time really mattered. Like the current report, it acknowledged that “improved social and emotional skills are essential to building young people’s resilience and allowing them to fulfil their potential.” Ofsted (2008) have also stressed the importance of education outside the classroom. For them, when planned and implemented well, such activities can contribute significantly to raising standards and improving pupils’ personal, social and emotional development.

Unlike before, this time there appears to be likelihood of funding being provided. It is not clear, however, whether this will be in the form of new money or an extension to the Pupil Premium. However it is done, one thing is for sure that little will change without financial support being made available. It is well known that it is the children from poorer backgrounds who often do not participate in extra-curricular activities and miss out on its valuable educational benefits.

Sutton et al (2007) pointed out how well-off children had a longer learning day. Whereas the poorer children had few opportunities to benefit form out of school activities, the wealthier children often began their learning day well before school and finished long after the formal school day ended. Lareau (2003), provided many examples of middle class parents who supplemented their children’s education through paid-for activities as well as through the many conversations they had with them and taught them knowledge, skills or particular way of seeing the world.  Evans (2007) made a similar point about middle class children whose whole lives were filled with structured activities oriented towards learning valuable skills in art, music, sport and drama and so on. Wikeley et al (2007) researched into extra-curricular activities and its benefits for young people in their formal education and later in life. They pointed out that such activities enabled young people to gain specialist knowledge; develop self control and confidence; learn about learning and greater agency. One of my earlier publications (Iqbal 2013) was devoted to developing resilience and self-efficacy and covered some similar ground.

The implications for Pakistani pupils

While the AAPG’s report applies just as much to Pakistani children – my current focus – in order to implement its recommendations, account will need to be taken of their Islamic religious education including the learning of the Quran. This has been the conclusion I reached based on my doctoral research into their education. The research was conducted in three Birmingham state schools, including one Grammar School. Their population ranged from almost all-Muslim to very few Muslim pupils. Research involved interviews with Year 11 Pakistani boys, their parents and teachers. A questionnaire was completed by over 200 Year 11 young people from all ethnic groups. Local authority reports and documents were also consulted, going back more than ten years.

It is worth pointing out here that a quarter of Birmingham’s pupils are already of Pakistani heritage and will, in the foreseeable future, become its largest pupil ethnic group. Since 2011, Muslims have been the largest religious group in local schools. Data from Birmingham Local Authority has shown that each year over 1000 Pakistani pupils leave local schools without the benchmark qualifications. Therefore, these issues are a matter of mainstream concern.

Key findings from my doctoral research 

For the Pakistani children, the research showed:

• Parents and the children value secular education and the opportunities it can provide.
• Children are taught respect for education, by their parents and mosque teachers
• Their religion was more important for Pakistani pupils than all other ethnic groups
• Ever since the Pakistani families and children arrived in the UK in the 1960s, parents have seen it as an obligatory duty, farz, to educate their young as Muslims. My research has shown that for many parents and their children this has been the norm throughout the past 50 plus years and continues to be so now. All the young people interviewed were either currently attending religious classes at a mosque or had done so until recently. Many of them started such activities while they were at primary school.
• Some children also struggled to complete their homework, either because of a lack of time or because they did not have appropriate help from parents.

Conclusion

In the context of the APPG report, for Pakistani children to take part in extra-curricular activities, it would require integration of such activities with their participation in Islamic religious classes, including learning the Quran.  This could be arranged by ‘bringing the mosque into the school’. The children already have a long learning day; they come to school and then spend many hours at a mosque. Instead of doing that, they could have an ‘extended’ day at the school, say, 8am to 6pm. They could devote some of the time to their Islamic education and some to extra-curricular activities.

Although, a few of the parents I spoke to about this expressed support for the idea, the policy would require wider consultation with the Pakistani community. It will also require the full involvement of imams and other religious leaders. They could be employed within the education system which would be an excellent way to integrate what the children do in their two, often disparate, worlds; each with its own distinct philosophy and approach.

Such an approach to broader education would mean that children are taught, more efficiently and effectively, what parents value. It would also mean they would have time to take part in extra-curricular activities. More critically, it could provide the children opportunities to do their homework, in a place where they have access to teachers and other resources.

The APPG report has recommend that there should be a respected, official ‘School Leaving Certificate’ that reflects a child’s achievement across a broad range of activities rather than just exam outcomes. For the Pakistani children, this could also include their achievements in Islamic education and learning of the Quran.

Greater opportunities for Pakistani children to participate in extra-curricular activities would also be good for community cohesion. It would enable them to spend social and informal time with children from other backgrounds, currently something they have little time or opportunity for.

References

DCSF. 2007. Aiming high for young people: a ten year strategy for positive activities

 Evans, G. 2007. Educational failure and working class White children in Britain:  Palgrave

Iqbal, K. 2013. Working-class underachievement: developing resilience and self-efficacy: Amazon Kindle.

Lareau A. 2003. Unequal Childhood: University of California

Ofsted. 2008. Learning outside the classroom

 Paterson, C. Tyler, C. and Lexmond J. 2014: Character and Resilience Manifesto: The all-party parliamentary group on Social mobility

Sutton et al. 2007. A child’s- eye view of social difference: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Wikeley et al. 2007. Educational relationships outside school:  Joseph Rowntree Foundation

I grew up in a little village in Azad Kashmir. It was a simple world. We walked everywhere, fetched our water from a nearby ravine and ate what was in season and what had been grown locally, in our own lands. Here, I was to learn my first words from Beyji and others in my family. As soon as I was old enough, I went to the local school. It was about a half hour walk away, over the other side of the ravine.

 We sat on the dusty floor, each year-class in a separate row. On the rare occasions when it rained we were sent home. There were two items of furniture in the school; a chair for our one teacher and a blackboard. Towards the end of my five years there, we were lucky to have a second teacher.

 As soon as I arrived at the school, I realised that my mother tongue was not a ‘proper’ language; after all, it didn’t even have a name. So, I set to learn Urdu. Some of the vocabulary was familiar but there were many new words I had to learn and discover their meaning. 

 I then went to the secondary school. We could sit on benches here. This school had more teachers; one per class.

 Now, as well as being exposed to a number of other subjects, I began to learn new languages, alongside Urdu. There was Farsi, which seemed like Urdu; just stranger. It helped us to understand some of the writing of Allama Mohammed Iqbal, our national poet.  We learned Arabic, so that we could understand the Holy Quran. We also learnt English. I didn’t know why we were learning this language; maybe it would help some of the boys when they went to Vilayat (meaning England; the source of word Blighty), to join their fathers there. Little did I know then that I too would soon be sent to England, to live with my older sister who had gone there after marrying my cousin.

I then arrived in England, in 1970. I quickly learnt that being an immigrant here was not much fun. I only had to remember the abusive welcome I had received on my first day at school. I also realised that the languages I spoke did not count. The only thing that mattered was how good my English was

 There was a bilingual community newspaper published near where we lived. Its editor, Mahmood Hashmi, who happened to be the person who founded Urdu journalism in the UK, encouraged me to write. So, I began to write, for their Urdu section; the first article was written while I was still at school. Later, I did an Urdu ‘A’ Level, based on what I had learnt in Pakistan. However, generally, in my new home, everyone told me “language = English”; nothing else mattered, nothing else counted. So I learnt English and …nothing else! I became fluent, even more than some who were born here.

 On the NALDIC website, I recently read:”Many children could grow up as bilinguals but in the UK, through a process known as subtractive bilingualism (Lambert 1975), become monolingual as the opportunities to use and develop their knowledge and skills in their first languages decrease.” In many ways this is exactly what happened to me and no doubt countless others and will go on happening unless we as a society move towards a more just policy of additive bilingualism, where learning English is not at the expense of a child’s mother tongue but builds on it and in the process celebrates it and enhances it.

 I managed to maintain some interest in bilingualism. For example, during the 1980s, when I did my masters qualification, my research focus was on ‘bilingualism amongst Asian students’. Occasionally, I would also read something in Urdu. But in the main, I was to spend many years relying solely on English. In the monolingual world I spent my work and social life, this was all that mattered. Although, no one ever said so explicitly, the clear message I received from the world around me was that bilingualism was not worth anything, certainly not if it involved ‘immigrant’ languages.

 The clearest advocate of the above viewpoint was Arthur Schlesinger Jr., as he pointed out in his book ‘Disuniting of America’:

 Bilingualism shuts doors. It nourishes self-ghettoization, and ghettoization nourishes racial antagonism. 

 Using some language other than English dooms people to second-class citizenship in American society

 After 43 years (of living and researching) in the UK, I am in a position to say that the above message is also true here. Consequently, slowly but surely, I became a monolingual. I began to not only lose my mother tongue vocabulary but my confidence with it. Then one day, I decided to deal with the situation.

 I remembered the advice I had been given by one of my teachers, soon after I had arrived in England. She had said: “read, read and then read some more. This will help you in learning English”. I wondered whether reading could help to keep alive both my mother tongues; Urdu, the formal one I learnt at school and my first one which now had a name, Pahari. So, I systematically began to read, by subscribing to an Urdu newspaper as well as books and any other material I could lay my hands on.

 It has had the desired effect. My mother tongues vocabulary is much broader now. My world is certainly a richer place now and bigger as I can access and benefit from more of it. I am also more confident; not just responding but initiating conversations too. A few years ago, it felt a real sense of achievement when I was able to interview Mahmood Hashmi, in our common mother tongues.

Using my skills in Pahari, recently I have also been able to conduct interviews with some of the parents, for my doctoral research in Birmingham. Here, it is worth pointing out that ‘Pakistani’-heritage pupils are a quarter of the city’s pupils and will, in the foreseeable future, become the largest ethnic group. Furthermore, it has been estimated that more than three-quarters of them are from Pahari-speaking families.    

I now look forward to the day when Pahari and Urdu will have the pride and recognition they deserve and my multilingualism will have the same status as that of people who can speak, say, European languages.

On the way to our Scottish retreat, our party of three cars decided to stop so we could take a good look at the beauty of the glen that surrounded us. We were not alone. Many other travellers seemed to have had the same idea and had pulled over in their cars, coaches and motorbikes.

Just as I switched the engine off in our car, the majestic sound of bagpipes could be heard. The sound for me is so unmistakably Scottish that it could easily have been springing from the natural environment around us. We quickly found the source. It came from the edge of the car park. With the whole panorama of the glen we had been travelling through behind him, the figure was there in his full Scottish regalia.

Someone said, “make sure you pay him, if you take a photograph.” Just then I saw that there was a container in front of him, for people to throw their coins. I reluctantly reached into my bag and found a coin, a pound, and thought that would do. As I reached down to drop it into the container, I noticed a few other similar coins in there already. This made me feel righteous; I was equally generous, I thought.

I then took a photograph. First one, then another and another. The thought crossed my mind: ‘was I taking too many’? Had I paid him enough? But then, out of nowhere, I found myself listening to the man. I suddenly realised there was a human being there, behind the uniform.

My family tell me I am always talking to strangers. What had I done to start this particular conversation? Did the fact I was Asian and him not come into it? Maybe it needed our distance to bring us close in this moment!

I could see a hardened man, almost like someone who lives a tough life, maybe even sleeps rough.

But! I had not wanted a sob story of an angry man; just music. I didn’t want to hear how resentful he was at people “stealing my music without a thought of paying for it.” I thought, for goodness sake, I am a tourist, on holiday for a few days. To have a break with friends. I have come away for frivolity, not to connect with social stuff. I have plenty of that where I come from. Just as I was wanting to pull away, he said: “look. See what I mean. There’s another one”, pointing to one of our party who just then had taken his camera out and was pointing in our direction.

But, actually, with hindsight, what I really want is for there not to be a sob story in the first place. So, travellers can stop, take in the view, click a few photos and move on. But for that to happen, someone would need to take care of the human behind the instrument. He had said he needed to feed himself and pay for a performance licence. Presumably, he also needed to live and clothe himself. Who knows he might have other needs to fulfil, just like the rest of us.

So, how about the Bagpipe Man being paid a wage! Not just a minimum but a decent one. He is an artist after all. But, who should pay it? Surely, he should not be dependent on the whim and mercy of the passing travellers! In any case, they, we, the travellers have already paid plenty already; to the hotels, the restaurants, the landlords and the general businesses we seem to frequent during our week, two weeks or just a few days of holiday. So, maybe some of that money should find its way down to pay the Bagpipe Man; so he can have a bit of dignity, like the rest of us. Maybe, he will then be able to concentrate on his art, on his music. And during breaks he could talk about what he does and the beautiful land he is a part of. Maybe he could be given the title of Scottish Ambassador, for that is what he is, representing his nation to foreigners from South of the Borders like me and others from far and near. 

Just as we were looking for a resolution of the clash of GCSE exams with the Muslim month of fasting, we now have two Accrington boys sent home from school for their refusal to shave their beards. What both these situations tell us is the importance of religion for Muslim pupils. While it’s a minority matter in some local authorities, in places like Birmingham needs and issues of Muslims are a majority concern as they are now the largest religious group in the city schools.

For the past three years, I have been conducting doctoral research amongst the city’s secondary schools, with a focus on Pakistani boys’ education. The research was conducted in three very different schools- a comprehensive, a semi-selective and one grammar. It included over fifty interviews with the boys, their parents and teachers. A questionnaire was also administered to over two hundred Y11 students from across the ethnic groups.

One clear conclusion of the research was the importance of religion for not just Muslim pupils but Asians generally. White pupils were found to be the least religious, as shown in Table 1. In response to the statement: ‘My religion is very important in my life’ Muslim pupils indicated the greatest agreement; Pakistanis at 88.8% and Bangladeshis at 87%. Indian pupils were only slightly behind, at 85.7%. A very small minority, 28%, of the White-British agreed with the statement.

Table 1: My religion is very important in my life (%)

For the Pakistani boys in my research, their religion manifested in the amount of time they spent on religious activities after school. This varied between one and four hours, from three days a week to daily. As well as learning to read the Quran, considered a fard, an obligatory duty, by the parents, they attended the mosque for their prayers and lessons on Islam.

For the boys, their religion was not just about believing and activities; it had a clear impact on their schooling. It taught them to be better students, to respect teachers, respect learning. More generally, many of them reported that their parents at home as well as their mosque teachers taught them to respect elders in general. This was also reported by the Pakistani parents I interviewed.

During the interviews with the boys and their parents, there were over one hundred references to the word ‘respect’, with the majority referring to teachers and education.  The following quotes were typical of the responses:

The same level of respect, for teachers, for mosque, for parents; that’s the way I have been brought up. It’s all the same. You’ve got to respect your elders no matter what; you can’t be rude to them. You’ve just got to show them a lot of respect. My mum and my dad have always told me that you’ve got to respect, whoever is older than you, you’ve got to show them respect. I’ve always been told: respect your elders. I respect my teachers allot.

Pupil

Just to show respect and have manners. ..(Respect) for your elders. For people your own age as well; don’t act as if you are bigger than them, don’t act arrogant, brash… Treat them as how you’d want to be treated.

Pupil

For the parents, being educated was more than achieving the benchmark 5 A*-C qualifications. They considered both the secular and religious – dunya and deen, this world and the next – were essential to the purpose of education and what being ‘educated’ meant. They saw it of equal importance that their children were taught to be good human beings, with good manners and morals, something that is often neglected in our school system.

“(Education) also includes knowing about his religion; he needs to know what Islam is, read his prayers, the fundamentals of Islam; it would make him a good human being as well. (Religion is) very, very important for us. In the way that, he needs it so to be a good human being. To understand his religion, religion is very, very important.

Fortunately, unlike the Accrington school above, schools in Birmingham were found to be accommodating of their Muslim pupils’ religious needs, such as space and opportunity for lunchtime prayers. In one school, they have anything upto 500 pupils participating in such prayers on a Friday. 

Karamat Iqbal works as an education consultant. He is the author of the recently published book ‘Dear Birmingham- a conversation with My Hometown’. He is studying for a PhD at Warwick University. He can be contacted at Karamat@1078051064.test.prositehosting.co.uk.

Dear Sir Michael

I read with interest your interview quoted in The Guardian newspaper about the consequences of educational underachievement. I have to say, it’s very much a case of ‘I told you so’.

Back in 2005, I produced a report ‘Underachievement of White Disadvantaged Pupils in Birmingham’. While focussed on one local authority, it had much wider application. Consequently, it was re-produced and was used as the main text for a parliamentary debate, on 19 May 2009. The debate had been instigated by Richard Burden MP for Northfield and the then minister from the DCSF, Sara Macarthy-Fry, had responded on behalf of the government. I was quite encouraged because she had agreed some of my findings. But then the election came and….

My report had made the link between underachievement and extremism (though I might have said cohesion). I had shown quite simply that the wards of Birmingham where large numbers of White pupils were leaving school with few or no qualifications were the same communities which had a presence of the British National Party and, in one or two wards, the National Front as well. I had also drawn attention to other consequences of underachievement such as crime.

Since the above document, I have also produced other research reports including one pointing out that addressing white working class underachievement was not rocket science. It provided, Colmers School, Longbridge, as a case study. My most comprehensive and recent report on the subject was ‘White Working class underachievement – a case for Positive Action’. This was used as the backdrop for my TES article ‘White working class needs the minority treatment’, published in 2010.

One point on which I do agree with you is that the underachieving groups change. For many decades, the largest numbers of pupils who have left our schools have been white boys, especially those on free school meals. But, as pointed out in my recent book, Dear Birmingham, Pakistani boys in the city will probably become the main losers in the education lottery, especially if nothing is done about it. The latter are already a quarter of the local authority’s school population and around a thousand leave every year without the benchmark qualifications. Like their White neighbours, many also head for anti-social activity; some even make it to prison. I hope to offer some solutions on their underachievement in the near future when my doctoral research has been completed.

Finally, there is little I can suggest that you would not know. To paraphrase, Professor Charles Desforges, the achievement of working class pupils (White, Pakistanis) could be significantly enhanced if we systematically apply all that is known about education.

Karamat Iqbal

Author ‘Dear Birmingham – a conversation with My Hometown’

The old colonies gained independence but did colonialism merely carry on as before by relocating ‘back-home’ the power base and the previous subjects – re-labelled as immigrants, who came to help rebuild the post-war mother country?

We know the British Empire has ended but what of its legacy? What of the philosophies which have informed the education system which educated the current generation of the powerful men and women who run institutions in diverse towns and cities in Britain? With the global ‘BRIC’ development as a backdrop and the developing discourse of super-diversity, what is the relevance of the old concepts of discrimination and equality in our colour blind world?

The aim is to use Birmingham Diaspora as a case study to explore the issues. More than a half of the city’s school population is of ‘minority’ origin with a quarter already of Pakistani heritage, many of whom do not achieve the benchmark qualifications. According to official predictions, the City is likely to become the first Muslim city in Europe. Drawing on the theories of Gramsci (Subaltern Studies) and Said (Orientalism), the particular situation of the Pakistani Diaspora in the City will be discussed. Given their large presence, their future is intertwined with that of the City.

Abstract for conference: Race, Migration and Citizenship- postcolonial and decolonial perspectives .  Stream: Diaspora, Colonialism & Postcolonialism