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First U.K. Hindu school

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: Britain's Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Jews already have their own state-funded faith schools and now, the country's 6,00,000-strong Hindu community is set to acquire one. The school, which like other faith schools, will receive millions of pounds of Government funding, will be located in Harrow, a predominantly Hindu enclave in north-west London, and run by I Foundation, a Hindu charity. Nitesh Gor, a director of the proposed Krishna-Avanti school, told The Observer that it would be advised by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISCON) on educational issues. He said there was "enormous'' support for the project which is expected to open in the autumn of 2008. Every major Hindu organisation was backing it, he said. Faith schools have been criticised by secular groups who argue that they promote separatism. There are nine Muslim and two Sikh state-funded schools besides hundreds of Christian faith schools. A spokesman for the National Secular Society said such schools were bad for integration.

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