Nesrine Malik’s otherwise excellent analysis pays too little attention to the motivation behind Michael Gove’s demonisation of local engagement in school leadership (Muslims still bear the stigma of the ‘Trojan horse’ scandal. Maybe that’s what was intended, 28 February). Twenty years ago, I was working with a number of ethnic minority communities around England, supporting them in setting up supplementary schools to compensate for the often poor public schooling available to them after 18 years of Conservative government. In a Birmingham suburb with a significant majority of people of Bangladeshi origin, the local primary school had not a single Muslim governor.
When asked, the headteacher claimed that “these parents are not interested in education – they don’t even come to parents’ evenings”. “When do you hold your parents’ meetings?” we asked. “In the evenings, of course.” We pointed out that the main occupation of many Bangladeshi men was in catering, and that many women would not leave their homes unescorted at night. We promised to demonstrate our point and packed the school hall for a social gathering, food and music included. By the end of the night, we had three new school governors. The seeds had been sown of a school that could understand and serve the needs of its community.
Gove’s favouring of unaccountable academy chains, many sponsored by hedge fund investors and businessmen, is the real threat to the system of local community schools, answerable to the people who send their children to them – and pay for them.
Nigel Gann
Lichfield, Staffordshire
• I write as someone who was a long-time governor at Golden Hillock school, renamed after the Trojan horse scandal. We now live in a different world from when the Sunday Times brought a Birmingham schools matter to public notice in 2014 with all the hype that followed, but there remains a degree of negative perception among parts of our population concerning Muslims and Islam.
The Dreyfus affair in France, like Trojan horse, was based on a bogus letter. It appealed to strong antipathy among sections of society towards Jewish people. The racism was insufficiently addressed, and many years later Pierre Laval’s Vichy regime handed over French Jews to the Nazis. Can Ukraine remind us that the dignity, freedom and security of all British people is precious to us all and needs defending? Lessons such as inclusion and the impartial application of the rule of law that defends difference can be part of the lessons learned for the common good. It must be our highest aim.
John Ray
Hook, East Riding of Yorkshire
• Nesrine Malik has missed the point about the Trojan horse concern in Birmingham. The issue was whether local authority schools could provide a wide education and give pupils a basic understanding of a multicultural society. We now have academies that can be set up by any religious organisation or individual.
Those of us who had hope that a public education service would provide for a thoughtful society with a wide range of cultural communities have now lost it. We now have a publicly funded education system with schools that do not have to follow the national curriculum. A sense of a cohesive identity is being lost.
Peter Bailey
King’s Heath, Birmingham
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