Moslem plea to Worlock on schools

A MOSLEM leader in Liverpool has appealed to Archbishop Derek Worlock to help keep a Catholic girls' school single-sex for the sake of the Islamic youngsters who attend it.
Akbar Ali, a trustee of the Liverpool Moslem Society, has written to the archbishop asking him to intervene to help keep St Mary's High School in Princes Park girls-only. If current proposals go ahead and the school is amalgamated with a local boys' college more than 20 pupils will have to leave and travel instead to a girls' school five miles away.
"Moslem girls aged 11 and over are not permitted to attend mixed sex schools, so if St Mary's admits boys they will have to leave and travel instead to a girls' school two bus journeys away," said Mr Ali.
"It will be a severe blow to Moslem families in the Toxteth area. At the moment there aren't that many with girls at St Mary's, but the Islamic population, particularly the Somali community, is expanding. In the next few years we would expect to be able to send many more girls to the school."
Since one of the arguments for making St Mary's mixed was the lack of pupils for a girls-only school this could, said Mr Ali, mean there were grounds for a re-think.