经济学人下载:穆斯林与教育 宗教学习

Muslims and education
穆斯林与教育

Religious studies
宗教学习

Giving schools more autonomy and encouraging religious groups to run them will produce the occasional disaster
给与学校过多自治权并鼓励宗教组织经营学校都有可能带来灾难

In Birmingham, the watchers weren't watching
在伯明翰，观察者们并没有尽到责任。

IT IS known as the Trojan Horse plot, but it may have been less subtle. Late in 2013 an anonymous letter was uncovered, outlining a hardline Muslim plan to “overthrow” teachers and governors in several Birmingham state schools and replace them with people who would run the schools on orthodox Islamic lines. The furore has grown, eventually involving Peter Clarke, once the head of counter-terrorism in London's Metropolitan Police, who will lead a government investigation.
穆斯林曾以特洛伊木马的剧情而闻名，但如今已经不再那么敏感了。2013年末一封匿名信被曝光，大致描述了一个强硬派穆斯林的计划，这项计划针对于一些伯明翰公立学校“推翻”教师和政府，并且让可以以正统伊斯兰教习俗来经营学校的人来取而代之。这已经激起民愤并难以平息，终牵涉到了皮特克拉克，他是将牵头一个政府调查的前伦敦都市警察反恐领头人。

The letter may be a fake, but something has certainly gone wrong in Birmingham's schools. Leaked reports about several academies (schools that are state-funded but independently run) by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, suggest that in some classrooms boys and girls are seated apart, that sex education is ignored and the theory of evolution dismissed. Ofsted is investigating 25 schools in the city. This is more than a local problem, because it hints at flaws in England's otherwise rather commendable education reforms. What has gone wrong in Birmingham is related to what has gone right elsewhere.
信件或许可以造假，但是伯明翰的学校确实已经有些不对劲了。学校检查机关英国教育标准局关于几所学校（虽是公立学校但是独立经营）的报告被泄露，报告指出一些教室男孩女孩是分开坐的，性教育被忽视并且进化论也被驳回。教育标准局正在调查伯明翰25所学校。这已经不仅仅是地方问题了，因为这意味着英国原本被值得称道的教育改革出现了裂痕。在伯明翰出现的问题或许是别的地方还未被发现的问题。

The last, Labour, government set some schools free from control by local authorities, which had often run them shoddily. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that has run Britain since 2010 has gone much further. About 60% of secondary schools are now independent academies. A further 173 are “free schools”, never under local-government control. Parents and local business folk have been encouraged to become more involved in running schools. So too have religious groups.
最后，工党和政府建立了一些学校来摆脱地方当局的控制，因为地方当局对于经营学校一直都不上心。保守党和自由民主党联合政府自2010年掌控英国以来已经获得很大成就。大约60%的中学如今已成为独立学院。还有173所学校是“自由院校”，不在地方当局管控之下。联合政府鼓励家长和当地商业人士更加致力于参与经营学校。这也同样鼓励了宗教组织。

Their influence is both formal and informal. Formally, Anglicans, Catholics and Jews, who have long run state schools, are being joined by others. Between 2011 and 2013 there were 831 applications to open free schools. The British Humanist Association, a secular outfit, has identified the religious affiliation—or lack thereof—of 659 of the applicants. They include 32 linked to the Church of England, almost half of which were approved. Fully 80 Muslim groups applied to run schools, although just five were granted approval (none of the schools under review in Birmingham is a religious school).
他们以正规和非正规的方式影响着办校问题。正式来讲，一直以来经营公立学校的圣公会信徒、天主教徒和犹太教徒，正得到其他人的积极加入。在2011年至2013年期间关于开设自由院校有831份申请。英国人文主义协会（一个民间机构）已从中确定659份申请的宗教信仰与否。这其中包括32份与英国国教有关联，而这32份申请有一半已经被比准。尽管只有5份穆斯林组织申请获得批准（这5份伯明翰审查的申请无一是宗教学校），但还有整整80份穆斯林组织申请经营学校。

Informally, Muslim parents are becoming more involved in schools of all sorts. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets, the Collective of Bangladeshi School Governors encourages it. Ibrahim Mogra, a Leicester imam who has served as a governor in several schools, says that religious schools are unnecessary: instead, Muslim parents should keep in touch with schools to ensure that the curriculum is taught in a way that does not cause anxiety.
同时，穆斯林家长正以各种非正规方式渗透进学校。在伦敦陶尔哈姆莱茨区，孟加拉国学校理事团体鼓励这种渗透。曾在几个学校就职理事的莱斯特伊玛目易卜拉欣·莫格拉称宗教学校的设立没有必要；相反，穆斯林家长应该与学校保持联系以确保课程的进行不会造成恐慌。

Much of this is to the good. Bangladeshis' exam results have improved so dramatically in recent years that they now outscore whites in GCSE exams taken at 16—astonishing for a mostly working-class group. But there have been calamities, too. An explicitly Muslim free secondary school in Derby was closed earlier this year following criticism of poor education standards and discrimination towards female staff. Muslim schools are trickier to handle than Anglican or Catholic ones, because British Islam varies so much in interpretation. Without clear structures of central authority, schools vary, and zealots can spy an opportunity to take over.
境况大大的好转。孟加拉国人的考试结果近年来提高得惊人，如今在16岁学生参加的普通中等教育证书考试中得分已经超过白人学生，这让以工薪阶层为主的人们震惊了。但这也带来了灾难。德比一所正统穆斯林自由中学因外界对其关于糟糕的教育标准和歧视女性员工的批评于今年早些时候关闭。穆斯林学校的问题比英国国教和天主教学校更加棘手，因为英国的伊斯兰有太多不同的说法。中央集权若没有明确的教育结构，学校就会变化，狂热者们也会等待机会将这些学校取而代之。

The Birmingham affair has also highlighted gaps in the inspection regime. The Department for Education is responsible for free schools and academies, but as their numbers soar it is increasingly hard to keep track of what is going on in them. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted's head, has argued that as schools become more autonomous some kind of stronger local oversight is needed, so that problems can be caught and dealt with more quickly.
伯明翰事务也凸显出了检视机制之间的鸿沟。教育部门对自由院校和学校负有责任，但当这些院校的数量飞涨的时候，追踪它们的状况就会变得愈发困难。教育标准局带头人麦克·威尔萧强调学校越来越自治便需要更强的当地监管，因此便能更加快速找出并解决问题。

Even if that happens, the difficulty of running any kind of religiously inspired school in an increasingly secular country grows. Politicians have smiled on faith schools. Many do not. A poll last year by YouGov put popular support for state funding of religious schools at just 32%.
即使灾难发生，在这个越发世俗的国家经营任何受宗教影响的学校都不是易事并且难度越来越大。政治家们对教会学校持乐观态度。但很多人却并非如此。YouGov（英国的民调机构）去年就支持国家资助宗教学校的支持率举行了一项民意调查，仅有32%的人支持这项资助。