Minutes:
The Chair had met with Imam Shakeel Begg regarding the situation in Birmingham. He had forwarded information to Dinah, Denise and Shaun from a blog which set out some of the background to the situation on some Birmingham schools and he was concerned about the implications.
Dinah had studied the blog and noted that the key issue seemed to be that a number of schools were failing badly with poor educational standards and weak governance. Many of these schools had large numbers of pupils from Muslim families and parents were understandably very concerned about the situation. The author of the blog stated that some of the original governors did not speak English fluently and had not understood their roles. Active members of the Muslim community replaced them with the clear aim of improving the educational chances of children in the community. Dinah felt that there were indications of a lack of governor training and even the new and enthusiastic governors were unclear about the role of governors. She felt that it was unlikely that a similar situation would occur in Lewisham: it is a much smaller Local Authority than Birmingham and so there is more opportunity for close vigilance. Furthermore Lewisham requires all new and prospective governors to attend governor training which focusses on the strategic role of governors and their range of responsibilities. Imam Shakeel and Dinah discussed setting up a programme whereby members of the Muslim community who were interested could be trained as potential governors. The clerk suggested that currently governor training focuses on existing new governors and extending the offer to the wider community would have financial implications. Dinah agreed to approach the head of Governors’ services to discuss this. Gail Exon stated that Lewisham had 5 National Leaders of Governance and she was one of them. She will contact her colleagues to discuss how governors in the Borough can work together to support this initiative.
Dinah and Imam Shakeel also discussed the issue of radicalisation of young people which had been raised by Cllr David Britten at the previous meeting as an item for the agenda. Mohammed Barrie (SACRE member representing the Mosque and Head teacher of the Olive Tree School) said that he had not heard of any concerns among local young people. However Dinah and Imam Shakeel both felt that SACRE and the Mosque should work together to support members of the Muslim community, parents and schools so that issues of radicalisation can be tackled openly and in a timely fashion. To that end Imam Shakeel suggested opening the Mosque for an event jointly hosted with SACRE whereby interested and/or concerned parties – Parents, Teachers, and members of the local community - could look at the issues under discussion and develop a framework of mutual understanding and support. He also stated that in the immediate situation if any schools, parents or young people have concerns about these issues he is happy for them to contact him: he is willing to speak to anyone who is concerned. SACRE members supported the idea of an event at the Mosque and Dinah will contact Imam Shakeel to confirm this.
SACRE members noted that Imam Shakeel was one of the three Imams who wrote to Islamic State condemning their activities as unislamic. Dinah will write to Imam Begg to express appreciation of his stance.
It was agreed that the Imam should be praised for his work in the media, condemning the ISIL fighters.