Time to clamp down on unsafe and failing yeshivahs, says report

Strictly Orthodox yeshivahs and other religious institutions that operate “like a school” must be registered and inspected, according to a new report for the government.

The independent report by Colin Bloom, appointed to examine the relationship between faith groups and the state, says: “If something looks like a school, sounds like a school and behaves like a school — it’s a school and should be regulated like one.

“Otherwise, the increased risk to children through potentially poor safeguarding practice, unchecked health and safety compliance, and narrow educational focus will continue.”

The finding comes after reports suggested hundreds of strictly-Orthodox Jewish boys aged 16 were left barely able to read or write English because they were taught in unregistered religious schools with no English spoken.

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Unregulated: Yeshivahs must open their doors to inspection (Getty Images)

Bloom’s review, published this week by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, praises the “profound” contribution made by faith communities to British society and describes the UK as a “successful multi-faith country”.

However, it also covers subjects such as forced marriage, religious extremism and radicalisation in prisons and warns "there are some issues which government has been reluctant to fully tackle".

While yeshivahs could play “an important role in the upbringing of Jewish children”, the report says, many currently “operate as out-of-school settings and yet some provide nearly full-time education centred on religious instruction, starting in the early morning and continuing late into the evening.”

It adds that some children spent “most of their time in yeshivah class, which in the opinion of this reviewer amounts to replacing a suitably broad full-time education with an unsuitably narrow one.

“Such a limited form of education can leave young people with very little career choice outside of the scholarly path determined by the yeshivah.”

The report says it is a “cause of deep regret” that the government’s concerns about religious schools are mainly seen “through the lens of counter-terrorism without also looking at them from a safeguarding perspective”.

It adds: “For the mental and physical safety of our children, it is important that government formalises its approach to these institutions.”

Bloom suggests the creation of a national body to oversee safeguarding and hopes that proposals to regulate out of school settings — which were contained in last year’s discarded Schools Bill — will be reintroduced at the earliest opportunity.

Among its 22 recommendations the report calls for “faith literacy training” for all public sector workers, lamenting the "woeful inadequacy" of faith literacy among civic leaders and policy-makers.

From the evidence gathered during widespread consultations over three years, civil servants and public servants were noted "as often having a very poor or superficial knowledge of the basic beliefs that differentiate religions".

The report says that policy-makers have "perhaps understandably" focused on Islamist extremism - which is "still the largest threat by volume" - and welcomes "the renewed pursuit of white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and a growing response to the significant and ugly rise of antisemitism".