Plans for an “unprecedented” 5,000-place Muslim girls’ boarding school will be scrutinised closely by the Government, junior minister Diana Johnson has said.
Ms Johnson told MPs there would have to be “very careful consideration” of such a school, which would be easily the biggest boarding school in the UK.
She was responding to a question from Labour MP Gordon Prentice (Pendle), who warned that building the school in his constituency could “undermine community cohesion”.
Charity Islamic Help has launched a funding drive to raise over £1 million to buy buildings which would then be turned into the Pendle Boarding School for Girls.
Highlighting that 45% of Muslim women in the UK have no academic qualifications, the charity’s website says: “There is a huge demand for a Muslim boarding school for girls to educate the Muslim women of the future.
“Islamic Help have located a building, and have until the January 10, 2010 to raise £1 million to secure its purchase (several million pounds below its market value).”
Once completed, the school would also provide a teacher training centre, counselling centre and gymnasium and sports hall “to meet the demand in other services for Muslim women”.
During Commons question time, Mr Prentice said: “There is a proposal on the drawing board for a huge 5,000-place independent boarding school for Muslim girls in my Pendle constituency.
“Do you believe, as I do, the existence of very large, single-faith, single-gender schools can work against community cohesion and we should tread very carefully indeed?”
Ms Johnson said 1,311-place Eton College was the largest boys’ boarding school, while 640-place Cheltenham Ladies’ College was biggest for girls. She added: “The figure of 5,000 for a boarding school would be unprecedented and obviously we would have to have very careful consideration of a school of that size.”