The Exclusive Brethren have often been described as a cult, I believe. Don't they have their own schools here in Australia, subsidised substantially by Australian taxpayers?

Abolish all taxpayer funding to religious schools of any persuasion, I say. While we're at it, abolish tax concessions to all religious organisations.

I don't see any difference between a Muslim madrassah and an Exclusive Brethren school.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, ALGOREisRICH. As far as I can tell, you are asking me to compare apples with oranges.

Islam is a widely practised, widely respected religion that, for the most part, does not raise child protection concerns and, for the most part, adheres to the laws of our society. I say 'for the most part', because there are certainly crackpot Muslims, just as there are crackpot Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Jews, Hindus, agnostics, atheists and, indeed, crackpots of all creeds.

The Children of God, on the other hand, are a fundamentally subversive group whose leader followed and endorsed a lifestyle that was in clear breach of a number of our society's laws. Islam does not do this (and don't bother replying with quotes from the Koran that imply otherwise: there are plenty of quotes from our Bible that are pretty heinous by today's standards, but nonetheless it is one of the cornerstones on which our society has been built).

In short, I don't object to law-abiding members of other religions establishing schools in which their law-abiding children can be brought up without the alien celebrations of Easter and Christmas, and without the alien preachings of government-sponsored chaplains.

Salaam

According to a report by a leading US think-tank, Islamic schools or masrasses in Pakistan are not stoking miltancy or extremism. In my opinion, British schooling has been producing Muslim youths who are angry and frustrated. They do not know where they belong. Majority of them leave schools with low grades. The number of Muslim inmates in British prisons is on the rise. Muslim children suffer from racism in schools becasue British education is the home of institutional racism and native teachers are chicken racists.

The demand for state funded Muslim schools is in accordance with the law of the land. Muslim community is not asking for any favour. I set up the first Muslim school in !981 and now there are 166 Muslim schools and only 11 are state funded. I would like to see each and every Muslim child in a dtste funded Muslim school because Muslim community pays all sorts of taxes and is less burden on social services. I hope that one day my dream will come true.

Human being is the product of his culture, language and faith. Human rights are also regarded as linguistic rights. English has become lingua franca or lingua frankensteinia. Cultural and linguistic genocide is very common. British schooling is murdering community languages. English is today the world killer language. Linguistic genocide is a crime against humanity. Genocide of a language causes mental and physical harm. It is a crime against humanity.

Bilingual Muslim children need to learn and be well versed in standard English to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. At the same time, they need to learn and be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry.

A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit

Perhaps they could take the 100 million pounds (at a conservative estimate, 2006) spent each year on translation services for residents who don't speak English and spend it on a couple of Muslim schools. Of course, it would mean that not only the children, but also their parents, would have to degrade themselves by speaking the language of their adopted country (or country of birth, in many cases). Seriously, Iftikhar, with an attitude like yours I'm unsurprised that you are fronted with considerable racism. Your demeaning talk of the 'notorious monolingual' Brits, to whose level no Muslim wishes to descend, is as arrogant as the rhetoric I heard during my childhood in the white Rhodesian community. And we all know how that ended.

I know I said I would not come back.
But to the troubled thread starter these words.
Try as hard as you will, you will never convince me all of your faith are as lost and divisive as you are.that your power base is other than the truly lost,
No you have not drawn me into debate, I do not value you or your opinions enough to stay.

There is a difference between education and indoctrination.

If you want a rounded education you look for sport, music, art etc.