Letters: The 'right' learning

This refers to Sunanda K Datta-Ray's column "A culture of fear" (Where Money Talks, June 14). My education as a student of a well-known Jesuit school in Bangalore was different. They did not believe in a "catch 'em young" policy or try to indoctrinate schoolchildren. They were respectful of other religions. Teachers were predominantly Hindus and there was never an attempt to indoctrinate us, except that Christians had a fee concession. When children as young as six are told in these ideology infiltrated schools that Western women are "white prostitutes" and other faiths and citizens are described in offensive and derogatory terms, it is time for the state to intervene and regulate, before more animosity spreads and leads to social disruption.

The general picture is of schools that have cut themselves off from the state's educational system, to cultivate or reinforce xenophobic religious and political beliefs that threaten the state's well-being. The Ofsted report is reflective of this anxiety. Schools should be free of radical religious indoctrination and education should be about reason and learning, not any particular belief system. There are many people from different cultures who are living in Britain in complete harmony. Perhaps, the late Samuel Huntington was right in his writings about the Clash of Civilisations.

H N Ramakrishna Novi, Michigan

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