Sydney is home to a number of mosques and about 12 Islamic schools. The largest Islamic school in Sydney is Malek Fahd, established in 1989 with a $12 million gift from the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia.While the topic is hotly debated in other countries, all religious schools in Australia receive federal and state government funding, be they Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Buddhist, Hindu, Scientologist, Exclusive Brethren, Mormon, fundamentalist Christian, Baptist, Sunni, Shi'ite, Wahabi. . . to start receiving funding you have to have the grand total of one student enrolled.
Malek Fahd at Greenacre received $ 8,560,571 from the Australian governmment and $ 3,560,571 from the NSW government in financial year 2005-06. That amount goes up every year. This school is categoriosed as one of the poorest in Australia, receiving the highest grants from Australian governments. How private schools are funded in Australia.
Malek Fahd is academically selective, and students not achieving a certain academic level are asked to leave.
Poorest? Not the school itself and considering the number of mega-mansions popping up in the area, being built on top of bulldozed modest houses that have always been good enough in the past, I don't think very many of the students are the poorest either.
ReplyDeleteWorking in a public school in the area I know some of the students who are required to leave for their senior schooling because they have not achieved in the TOP 2 Bands for their Year 10 Certificate - many have been at the school since kindergarten, but are suddenly not good enough. They are bright BUT have big gaps in knowledge that indicates that the curriculum there does not match that which is covered in my public school. Given the selective nature of Malek Fahd it's HSC results do not match those of my comprehensive public school which takes all comers withou fear or favour, from those with learning difficulties to the more academically able. Just think what my students could do with all that money and for that matter how much better the students from Malek Fahd would no doubt do if they received the rigorous, monitored, ACCOUNTABLE education provided by the public system.
Nola
We have no mosque here. The muslim community is still so small. And unlike the other western cities they are almost unvisible.
ReplyDeleteIn our crazy national-ultracatholic country they are still a threat.
But I think that just a matter of time.
cette mosquée est superbe, elle a une architecture tres moderne, tout en restant dans la tradition. tu l'as deja visite, elle est comment a l'interieure ?
ReplyDeleteJe te souhaite un bon weekend
this mosque is superb, it has a very modern architecture, while remaining in the tradition. does you have it already visit, it is how have the interior one? I wish you a good weekend
I love the shapes and silhouettes of mosques...they are usually beautiful buildings.Government funding for non-govt. schools in NSW has been such a contentious issue for, well it seems FOREVER! There was a time I remember when it was much higher up the list of important electoral issues.
ReplyDeleteI like your location to shoot the picture. It turned out very nice.
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln
Today you will get to see the baby raccoons...
Brookville Daily Photo
Scientologist???
ReplyDeletehmmm that's a very interesting post.
ReplyDeletei did not know every school gets funding.
this is a joke: if sally sets up a school with me as a student, you can get funding too? :-p
WoWWW...thats an absolutely Awesome shot. In our country these kind of educational institutions only receive grant if their course content & teaching is modernised, else not.
ReplyDeleteWoWWW...thats an absolutely Awesome shot. In our country these kind of educational institutions only receive grant if their course content & teaching is modernised, else not.
ReplyDeleteWe have BIG debate in Cologne right now and loud controversial and on saturday would be a huge demonstration of Pro and Contra of a built-up programme of a big mosque which will be the biggest in Germany but I don't know if we do have Islamic College here
ReplyDeleteDebate here was on purpose by last right-hand Governement to finance private schools. My opinion is that I don't mind at all which kind of private school they are (religious or not and, if religious, which religion they represent). The point is that a worthy country put money, at first, in public school, in research, in the idea that a good isntruction mirror the soul of the country. Then, after that, they can give money to private schools. BUT ONLY AFTER.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting building, and informative information about the private school system.
ReplyDeleteI read recently that NYC spends 33% of its budget on public schools here.
ReplyDeleteI don't have much personal knowledge of the public school systems here except that the teachers' union is super powerful.
Interesting data on public funding of private schools. The debate is latent here in Portugal. For the time being people are occupied with the new Lisbon airport and the TGV train...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment on Blogtrotter. So now you know that the bald guy with the kid in his arms, who became an Augustinian monk at the age of 15 and ten years later, joined the Franciscan, is OF LISBON! Further information in the answer to your comment...
Excellent post, Sally!
ReplyDeleteFunding as from ONE student??? How much, one dollar ?
I'm not sure it's a good idea to provide funding to fundamentalists of all nature. Not prone to bring peace to the world. Let the royal family of Saudi Arabia do it and concentrate on public schools, please!
In France private schools are only funded if they follow the curriculum set by the Government. I think it's a fair system.
It's not easy to have a rational discussion re education. Protagonists on all sides tend to be equally fundamentalist in their "interpretations" of what does/doesn't happen. Sadly, some of the secular 'saints' are so convinced of their philosophical (sic) purity, that they're oblivious to the fact that they rely on arguments [or more accurately, conclusions] which differ very little in structure from the religious fundamentalists they criticise.
ReplyDeleteIt becomes a battle royal between two varieties of 'true believers'. A battle in which virtually all sides are "religious" in their attitudes. WE have the theistic religionists on one side, the non theistic religionists on the other.
And both sides show a loyalty to their positions which would be worthy of the Crusaders, Saracens, Marxists, Uncle Tom Cobleys and All of past conflicts.
Sally, if you know anyone who could be interested, a 'different' Muslim based group, "Affinity Interfaith", have a symposium at Macquarie uni next Friday eevning on developing greater community interaction. They regularly have Columban priests, rabbais, academics, etc., at these events, but are totally ignored by the media. They even have Eva Cox speaking this time.
ReplyDeleteYou could check the event out at www.affinity.org.au
Hi Sally,
ReplyDeleteDo you know any mosque around city of Sydney?
I can not find it through internet
I believe every cent the school is getting, it deserves. It has high academic achievements and is always placed firsed in all the schools in it's region; facing agains many public schools and 2 other non-Islamic private schools. So that fact of low academic ability can easilly be argued againest. As well as tha tmost of these other comments would have been MUCH more different if it wasn't an Islamic school, thanks to all the racism againest Muslims now days. If everyone feels this way about the school then why don't they actually see how it is and see if it isn't using the money wisely. As a student at Malek Fahd coming from a public to private school made an incredible difference, even though I was coming first in my public school I realised how much more advanced the kids were at MFIS. So I'm living proof that that school is a whole lot different than what most people think about it. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm a student too... Nice picture you've got there by the way ^^. The mosque is really beautiful inside but it smells weird... well it smelt alright when it was newer heheh. I personally don't really like defending our school and stuff. Recently, I haven't heard of any kids being asked to leave. But if they did, people don't usually notice... we just keep to ourselves. I don't know why so many people like talking about this school anyways. Racism is old. The only people who still stick to it are old people ==;
ReplyDeleteI was a ex-student at this school and though the education and environment are excellent, the funding thee school is getting is not being spent fairly as only the "smart" students are given full support whilst others have to go to tafe and attend school at the sam time because theres subjects that are not provided. With the kind of funding the school is getting I believe there should be more subjects provided as it is extremely hard to manage your time in HSC when you have TAFE and school. In general the school is amazing however some adjustments have to me made.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently in the school and I've got to say that the funding is ill spent. The school managed to buy a few hundred computers. We have computers in the library but for crying out loud we can't use them. This really strikes me as awkward, I mean the funding is directed to ensuring a proper educational environment yet students are banned from making full use of the school's resources. Students are also pushed to the limit and the constant exams make life difficult. Subjects learnt are all decided by the principal and the only option a student gets is between business or physics and legal and chemistry. All in all the principal seems to be the king around here and his unorthodox style and his ideology that students can like being controlled is unbearable.
ReplyDeleteHonestly as a student at MFIS i do agree that dumping strugglers is just a way of keeping the school in the HSC top ten and it is unethical and immorral.
ReplyDeleteThe mosque is beautiful with a huge gold candlebra in the centre
Honestly. I'm now a student at MFIS in year 8 and I believe that the money they're being funded is being used WELL. Just because the school is muslim, it doesn't mean that it's crap...And when Malek Fahd "dumps" these academically poor students, then it's doing it for the good of its school's name and reputation. After all, if they can't keep up, then TOUGH LUCK!!! {P.S. Many of your guys' punctuation is bad, fix it!} :)
ReplyDeleteThis school has been ordered to repay $9 million in funds because of misappropriation. Why our taxpayer money is being spent on funding islamic schools is beyond me. We have Australian children studying in containers in the public arena whilst we fund this.
ReplyDelete