Pigs tale banned to 'placate Muslims' THE tale of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf has delighted children for generations. Yet the head of a Yorkshire school has banned the story in classes from fears it will offend Muslims. Barbara Harris, headteacher of Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School, Batley, removed all books containing stories about pigs, including the fairy tale and the talking pig Babe, from the classrooms of children aged under seven in case they upset Muslim pupils and their families. She claimed it had been school policy for seven years to avoid telling the stories to young Muslim children, following complaints from Muslim parents, and that the books had been removed after a teacher had accidentally breached the policy. Last night Yorkshire Muslims condemned the move as "nonsense", as their holy book, the Koran, permits followers of Islam to talk or read about pigs as long as they do not eat their meat. Bradford magistrate Bary Malik, an Ahmadiyya Muslim, said: "Every day Muslims recite passages from the Koran. "As the Koran mentions pig, Muslims must say that word. All the Koran says you should not do is eat pork, but there is no harm in using the word or reading it. "This school has gone too far – what will they do next, ban the word cow because Hindus believe the cow is sacred? "In this world there are many extremists who do not like Jews or Muslims – does that mean that we should ban the words Jews or Muslim out of respect for their views? "Really it shows a lack of religious understanding. It's nonsense." The chairman of the Indian Muslim Welfare Society in Batley, Ibrahim Dockrat, said he was puzzled that school policy appeared to have been a kneejerk reaction to complaints from some parents: "I am surprised that it has been blown out of proportion, that they would have acted in this way. If you are going to use religion, you need to be able to substantiate that by seeking religious guidance from properly qualified people." But yesterday Mrs Harris defended the policy saying she was merely trying to ensure respect for pupils' religious sensitivities, although she did concede it might be time to review it. She said: "Approximately 60 per cent of the children attending are Pakistani or Indian origin and 99 per cent of these are of the Muslim faith. The remaining 40 per cent of children are mostly from the white community with some Bosnian Muslim, some mixed-race and some Sikh children. "The school considers itself fortunate to have such a wonderful variety of children. Pupils here celebrate their differences and on the whole are sensitive to each others' needs." But she said recently she became aware of an occasion where young Muslim children were read stories about pigs. She said she then sent a memo to staff stating that fiction books containing pigs should be removed from early years and key stage one classrooms so that such a mistake would not happen again. But she added: "The books remain in the school library and there is nothing to stop our youngest children having stories such as Three Little Pigs in small groups. "The memo made it clear that older children (seven years and above) can be expected to make informed choice about their reading material. "I very much regret that anyone should find this controversial as all we are doing is trying hard and reasonably successfully to ensure all of our children are awarded the respect that all human beings deserve." alex.buller@ypn.co.uk 05 March 2003
