Sweden bans all religious schools due to increased segregation

Sweden pledges to ban all religious schools in an effort to reduce segregation caused to country's Muslim schools

The Social Democratic Party, which is currently running a minority government, says "teachers, and not priests and imams should lead schools". The bill has not yet been supported by the parliament, but several other parties have criticized institutions of religious free schools after a report on gender segregation in teaching in existing institutions, writes Dailymail.

"We must break segregation in order to maintain Sweden a unique ... school segregation must therefore be broken into the root," said Ardalan Shekarabi at a press conference in Stockholm. Mr Shekarabi said his party, which is losing support to the main opposition party in the latest polls, is hoping to get voter support on the issue.

"Teachers and pedagogues should be in charge of a Swedish school, not priests and imams," said Mr. Shekarabi. Omar Abu Helal, director of the Islamic school in southern Sweden, said that this bill was a "violation of the European Convention on Human Rights" and "freedom of religion". All religious schools in Sweden, one of the most celestial nations in the world, are "free schools", and independently operate in receiving state funds.

Since it is forbidden in Swedish law to charge elementary education for children under the age of 18, any government school is funded by the state. There are 71 primary and secondary school schools, accounting for five percent of all free schools in Sweden. One Jewish, 59 Christian, and 11 Muslim. There are several other Jewish schools that do not fall into this category, as they do not have certain religious elements in their educational plans and exist to cooperate with an ethnic minority.

Segregation, integration and immigration will be the main topic of the country's talks until the general elections in Sweden, a country that received 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015 during the European migration crisis. The country has registered about 400,000 asylum claims since 2012, or one for every 25 inhabitants, a record in Europe.

• 19 Mar, 2018
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