Family & Education
Charedi leaders call for day of prayer over Labour education plans
Proposal to introduce register for children taught at home or in yeshivot sends alarm bells ringing in Stamford Hill
July 24, 2024 17:38
Proposal to introduce register for children taught at home or in yeshivot sends alarm bells ringing in Stamford Hill
July 24, 2024 17:38London’s Charedi leadership has called for a day of prayer on Sunday week over fears that new measures planned by the government could lead to regulation of yeshivot.
In last week’s King Speech, the government announced it would introduce local registers of children who are taught at home or in currently unregistered institutions such as yeshivot.
A similar move was supported by the last government but it ran out of parliamentary time earlier this year before the general election.
Now the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations is rallying the faithful amid concerns that the register could prove the thin end of the wedge in yeshivah regulation.
The government is also planning to give Ofsted greater powers in investigating unregistered institutions.
An estimated 1,500 boys from 13 to 16 in Hackney are thought to be learning in yeshivot that teach little or no secular education.
The last government had proposed tightening the legal classification of a school to include religious establishments such as yeshivot, which argue they fall outside the current definition — but the Bill which contained the proposal was dropped two years ago.
The JC understands that the Department for Education is exploring whether such a redefinition would be necessary to tackle unregistered settings.
Rabbi Levi Weiss, of the Rabbinical Committee of the Traditional Charedi Chinuch (Education), a lobby group which previously organised protests against the register plan, said, "The government is yielding to pressure from anti-religious factions. These factions look upon the achievements of Charedi graduates compared to the national average with jealousy and are fervently striving to dominate all institutions."
The RTCCC’s president, the centenarian Rabbi Elyokim Schlesinger, has written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to express its “grave concerns”.
The proposal to register children, he told the PM, was “intended to challenge and undermine our Torah educational system, which include largely our yeshivas”.
Congratulating the Prime Minister on his election and wishing him success, he implored him to “protect the human and basic rights of the Charedi Jewish communities”.
A spokesman for the Department for Education told the JC, “High and rising school standards are at the heart of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life, and the Children’s Wellbeing Bill is an important step towards this.
“Our priority is to ensure all children are receiving a suitable education and no child falls through the cracks. The Children Not in School registers will allow local authorities to better identify children not in school and to make sure they are best supported.”
Ofsted said that it was “a criminal offence to run an unregistered school in England, but weaknesses in the legal framework hamper our ability to investigate and prosecute offenders. We welcome the plans mentioned in the King’s Speech and look forward to working with Government on the details of this much-needed legislation .”