An Islamic school whose public funds were allegedly sent to Pakistan has run up debts of almost £3 million, it has emerged.
Pupils at the troubled Al-Hijrah School in Birmingham were forced to eat their meals on the floor after the school failed to provide basic facilities, appoint enough teachers or introduce a new national curriculum.
It was alleged last year that public funding earmarked for dining tables and chairs was instead sent to Pakistan.
The school was placed in special measures last May, when it was branded "inadequate" in a damning Ofsted report.
A month later, the whole governing body was sacked after financial troubles, including a £600,000 budget deficit from the last financial year, were revealed and a new interim board took over.
Birmingham City Council is investigating claims that the trust might have used public money to help fund a £1 million boys-only school 5,000 miles away in Pakistan. [456 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT] If this sort of corruption and abuse of funds had been discovered at a school run by a Christian organisation, does anyone have the slightest doubt that rather than throwing yet more money at it the school would simply have been shut down?
[ANOTHER] Third World imports conducting business the Third World way - what do you all expect ....
[ANOTHER] .... So now the British taxpayer is conned into funding madrassas in Pakistan while our government is too PC to take a grip.
[ANOTHER] .... I am not a Muslim but I grew up in an Islamic country .... Muslims from young age are taught not to mingle with other faiths, there is no social integration at all. Since Muslim schools benefits only Muslim pupils and not others, why should the UK gov fund this type of school?
[ANOTHER] Right, let's see the lot of them charged with fraud.
[ANOTHER] No chance of that, it would be Islamophobic and threaten community coherence.
[ANOTHER] Why the hell are we funding Islamic schools? If the parents want an Islamic "education" for their children they should return to an Islamic country.
[ANOTHER] More scandal, lies, deceit and the bungling council that just shrugs it's shoulders and looks to the taxpayer to take up the burden. Why are these 'schools' allowed to get away this kind of thing?
.... I suspect the resistance in terms of rules, regulations and the law are rarely applied with any weight due to the collaboration of the council that probably employs equally sympathetic people and thus permits this kind of thing. [The Telegraph] Read more
