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UK teachers’ union to discuss changing UK exam timetable to accomodate Muslims and Ramadan

Apr 6, 2014 3:51 pm By Robert Spencer

Students in class“If you run exams in the morning because of this, you may be disadvantaging a non-Muslim pupil who then has two exams in one day rather than one.” But who cares about them? This is the brave new Submissive Britannia, eager as always to accommodate its new Muslim masters! Why doesn’t the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union add to its agenda a discussion about making girls sit in the back of the class, so as not to offend Muslims? “Bid to bring forward GCSEs so Muslim pupils aren’t fasting for Ramadan while they take their exams,” by Julie Hendry for the Daily Mail, April 5 (thanks to Joe):

GCSE and A-level examinations could be brought forward for hundreds of thousands of pupils to avoid a clash with Ramadan under controversial proposals.

Teachers and lecturers in England and Wales are pushing for the summer exam timetable to be altered to help Muslim students who will be fasting when they sit papers.

School exam boards and universities are considering the radical shake-up from 2016, when the religious period of Ramadan clashes with the exam season.

One option is to hold some exams earlier within the usual May-June exam season. Another is for fasting Muslim students to be eligible for extra marks under ‘special consideration’ rules if they believe their performance has been affected.

The holy period in the Islamic calendar, which requires Muslims to fast during daylight hours, starts to fall earlier and earlier in the summer from next year, progressively clashing with the exam season in June.

The clash also coincides with Michael Gove’s return to O-level style exams, which are taken at the end of the two-year course rather than at intervals throughout it – making the summer exams the only chance to do well.

This month, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union (ATL) conference will debate how to ‘minimise the impact’ on Muslim pupils.

Barry Lingard, who is on the ATL executive committee, said: ‘The consequences are quite huge, particularly with the return to three-hour exams at the end of the course in the summer.

If some of the big vital exams like English and maths could be rescheduled for before Ramadan kicks in, that would certainly be supported by the majority of teachers.’

Ofqual, the exam watchdog, and the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents the main three exam boards, have met with Muslim groups to discuss the issue.

Another suggestion is to run exams in the morning, when pupils are less likely to be hungry and tired, rather than the afternoon.

The government-funded Equality Challenge Unit, which advises higher education, said exam time-tables should be overhauled.

‘Institutions should be prepared to consider significant adjustments to their exam schedules and think creatively about assessment methods in order to eliminate disadvantage to particular groups,’ it said.

Muslim undergraduates at university are also affected by the clash of dates. At the University of East Anglia in Norwich, they have already been told: ‘Where a student feels that fasting has affected their performance, this should be submitted as an extenuating circumstance.’

But Chris McGovern, a former head teacher and spokesman for the Campaign for Real Education, said children had been coping with exams for decades in many different circumstances.

‘Where there is scope for some flexibility the exam boards should exercise it, but I don’t think it is realistic for a board to rearrange their timetable to fit in with a minority religion, or any religion for that matter,’ he said.

‘If you run exams in the morning because of this, you may be disadvantaging a non-Muslim pupil who then has two exams in one day rather than one.’

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Filed Under: dhimmitude, United Kingdom, Useful idiots Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Andy says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    Why you do fasting then? When you’re religious activities making a lot of disruption. Why you always demanding other to submit your religious schedule? If you want to make everything is work to ease your fasting, isn’t that your fast is useless? There is no substantial meaning for fasting at all!

    • Julien Peter Benney says

      Apr 18, 2014 at 4:34 am

      There is much truth is that, since as a young man I read that many Muslims actually eat more during Ramaḍan than at any other time of year due to the feating during the night.

      This is so different from the fasting stories I have read from native peoples of the Western hemisphere or of Christian mystics like Marthe Robin who are supposed to have eaten and drunk nothing except weekly Holy Communion for fifty-three years– something which my relatives say is scientifically totally absurd even though Marthe was completely paralysed. Fasting as I imagine it means eating very little – less than the Poor Clares who are supposed to “fast at all times” but actually eat one meal and two small snacks a day and can normally drink water if thirsty.

      During Ramaḍan, Muslims are supposed to recite the whole Qur’an each day, which may be disturbing for work, but the amount they eat should be enough for them to work even if they do recite the Qur’an.

  2. richard Sherman says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    Soon UK teachers will be …as per the Koran…directing all students to kill infidels and decapitate Jews…just as the sociopath MUHAMMAD did.

    • Jay Boo says

      Apr 6, 2014 at 4:27 pm

      That may be an exaggeration, but it would not be surprising to see teachers instruct all students to fast during Ramadan so as to accommodate Muslims.

      • Bradamante says

        Apr 6, 2014 at 5:48 pm

        Supposedly, it’s already been happening — I don’t have a link handy, but there have been reports of teachers telling children not to eat or drink in front of Muslim classmates during Ramadan, thus essentially requiring the children to fast.

      • Elliott says

        Apr 7, 2014 at 11:20 am

        This is TOO ridiculous for words.
        In the Jewish calendar there are 6 Fast days in the year. Four of them are dawn to dusk (in London in the summer this means until 10:20 pm). The other two are full 25-hour fasts. This means no food and no water for 25 hours. If I observe a Fast Day in the Jewish calendar (and being Jewish and religious, I do), and I don’t want to see others (Jewish or not) eating – I WALK AWAY (or I live with it). I certainly don’t impose my religious beliefs / activities on others. This is one of the reasons for my living in Israel (since 1982). Note: there are plenty of non-religious Jewish people who do not observe some (or all) of these fasts. I have to live with that as well!
        Can I suggest that if people who follow the tenets of Islam find Ramadan difficult in a “Western” country, they should live in a more appropriate country. Of course, in places like Saudi Arabia you can be killed for eating at the wrong time during Ramadan, but that’s what you (might) get for following Islam and living in a Sharia-conforming country.

        • Defcon 4 says

          Apr 8, 2014 at 1:18 am

          @Elliott

          What you state is the truth, I knew a Lebanese Christian who saw a man beaten into unconsciousness in Lebanon for drinking from a public water fountain, during the day, on Ramadan.

        • Julien Peter Benney says

          Apr 18, 2014 at 4:40 am

          Although Saudi Arabia is very strict, as far as I know people who eat or drink during daylight hours of Ramaḍan are simply sent to jail until Ramaḍan is over. Where is your evidence they are killed for eating in daylight during Ramaḍan??

  3. Andy says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    Always demanding!

  4. tpellow says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    Such discrimination against the majority of non-Muslim children in England, is a direct consequence of the British political class, supported by most of MSM, pursuing a policy of open-door, mass immigration from Islamic countries.

    And now we see how the British political class, including the main political parties, and trade unions, are succumbing to organised Islamic interests at the cost to the education of the vast majority (for now) of non-Muslim children.

    • Salah says

      Apr 7, 2014 at 1:36 am

      “Such discrimination… is a direct consequence of the British political class, supported by most of MSM”

      Well said, tpellow.
      That’s exactly why I keep saying that Islam is not the main problem, Islam can be crushed in a jiffy were it not for our PC political class and their MSM puppets.

  5. Alan S says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 7:24 pm

    Suppose they can move the exams over Christmas, Passover and Easter, these are no longer considered important.

    • ANGRYLEPRECAUHN says

      Apr 6, 2014 at 10:03 pm

      Didn’t you hear? Christmas and Ester has been canceled due to it offending Muzzies!

  6. John Magee says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    During Ramadan Muslims fast all day and then at sundown they gorge themselves with food and drink water or other liquids. What kind of fasting is that? After a night of eating these Muslim students are in perfect shape to attend classes. This is just another case of the British becoming good dhimmi’s by letting their Muslim minority (at least for a few more decades) intimidate the majority population.

  7. Zubair Khan says

    Apr 7, 2014 at 4:21 am

    Most of the commentators just wanted to show their hatred of Islam whatever issue may be. Instead praising the bold steps taken by UK downgrading one important pillar of Islam. Keep in mind Islam is the future religion of Europe. No one can stop these tidings now.

    • MrIpe says

      Apr 7, 2014 at 5:20 am

      Those pillars are important only for carrying their poor Allah.

    • Reality Check says

      Apr 7, 2014 at 6:35 am

      Well, well – since I’m not going to embrace Islam willingly, what are you going to do to me? Kill me? Rape me? Subjugate me? Starve me to death with the jizya, so that I have nothing to eat? Or maybe you will tie each leg of mine to a camel and tear me apart like Muhammad’s soldiers did to Umm Qirfa of the Banu Fazara tribe?

      I don’t know ANYONE – and I truly mean NO-ONE – who will accept your rule willingly in my country – we had 500 years of Muslim rule until the late 19th century and the memories are still fresh. If you ever try to say “Islam will rule again” in my land, you will be surprised at the violent reaction you’ll get. We have seen too much of the “beauty” of Islam to let it live ever again!

    • richard Sherman says

      Apr 7, 2014 at 12:31 pm

      Every person has to choose between FREEDOM and SHARIA. There is no grey area. By definition, once you accept part of SHARIA you have accepted all of SHARIA…

    • Elisabeth says

      Apr 7, 2014 at 4:19 pm

      such accommodation is outrageous to a people who are the most intolerant of all. Why come to a democratic country at all and not stay in the hell hole you came from? I truly believe that such bending should be avoided at all cost.

    • Defcon 4 says

      Apr 8, 2014 at 1:19 am

      Pisslam, like Nazism, deserves nothing BUT hate.

  8. Reality Check says

    Apr 7, 2014 at 6:22 am

    Christians working towards accommodating Muslims in their own Christian lands again. This is strange but somehow I can’t remember Muslims trying to accommodate ME in their world when I worked there. During the Ramadan, my Muslim coworkers were free to leave whenever they pleased and it was left with us, Christians and Hindus alike, to keep their Muslim business working. Imagine what it would be like to have no Christians and Hindus working for them – their economies, dysfunctional even now, will literally fall apart.

    That’s how Islam stops their countries from becoming a success, by focusing entirely on prayer and religion and putting work in the backseat. In fact, they don’t even have to wait until the Ramadan – they have these extended lunch and dinner breaks every working day, always made longer by their prayers.

    And then Christmas came and no Muslim even thought about giving us some extra time off. This is what pisses me off the most about Islam – it’s their world and their rules AND it’s our world and their rules again. There’s simply no chance for non-Muslims to live by their own rules with Muslims nearby. When will those dumb heads in the West realize it all?

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