Current Events
New Sikh School in Southall
by POONAM TANEJA
A special tandoor will cook traditional Punjabi cuisine. And the classrooms of the Khalsa Voluntary Aided Primary School are painted in the Sikh colours of saffron and blue.
The alphabet is carved into the walls in Gurmukhi - the most common script used for writing Punjabi. While the Nishan Sahib, the Sikh flag, triangular and saffron-coloured, hangs from a tall, stone pole.
"Whatever we teach will be underpinned by Sikh values and ethos," says the new school's headteacher, Kawal Kaur Singh.Pupils will study the national curriculum but will also learn the Punjabi language and Sikh history.
Mrs. Kawal Singh says the pupils will also learn about other faiths and they will celebrate religious festivals including Christmas and Diwali.
And 20% of places are reserved for non-Sikhs.
"We will always make sure we are a school in England - that we are looking at British Sikhs who are going to be global citizens."
"We have relationships with other schools, which are not Sikh schools, where the children have visited" says Mrs. Singh.
"They have visited us in the gurdwara, so we will make sure that we always remain in the mainstream.
There are currently 170 children at the school and it is already oversubscribed.
It will grow as new pupils join the reception class each year, until it reaches capacity of 470.
Although there are three other state-funded Sikh schools in the UK, this is the first to be officially affiliated to a gurdwara.
SIKH VALUES
Mantej Singh Notay is confident the new school is right for his son Arjun."He will mix with teachers that are living by Sikh values. He will mix with teachers that have values of their own, whether they are Sikh or not.
"He can live and learn in the environment we have chosen to send him to because we are comfortable with that environment.
"I was the first child in my school who had a turban and I had problems with that. I had my turban knocked off, I got bullied.
"So for me it is about trying to get him all the knowledge, the ammunition, he needs to live his life as a strong Sikh and also as a strong person in society.
"Coming to a Sikh school, he will get all the educational factors but he will also get with that all the Sikh factors and come out as a better human being as a result of it."
OVERSUBSCRIBEDA huge, stone arch marks the entrance to the cedar-clad, two-storey building which is in a conservation area.
There is a kitchen, garden and woodland trail for the children to explore. School lunches will be vegetarian, in accordance with gurdwara protocol.
At the heart of the school is a gurdwara (place of worship) around the Sikh Scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib.
Here, pupils will remove their shoes and cover their heads, starting the day with 20 minutes of prayer before lessons.
"There has been pressure for a long time from the community to start a gurdwara school," says Surinder Singh Purewal, the General-Secretary at the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara, the largest gurdwara outside India.
"In India, gurdwaras run schools as well as colleges. In the Sikh scriptures, there is a lot of emphasis on educating kids, so that is where it comes from."
The local community raised £5m of the total £12m cost of the new state of the art, environmentally-friendly building, with the remainder of the funding coming from the Department for Education.
And Surinder Singh is confident other gurdwaras will follow their example.
"I know that other gurdwaras are already looking at it. They are thinking of taking a leaf out of this book.
"It can be done and we will give our help and advice to anyone who wants to do it."
[Courtesy: BBC]
September 7, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Taran (London, United Kingdom), September 07, 2010, 2:50 PM.
It is really hard to get admission for your child if you don't know any one from the gurudwara committee. They have their own system to allocate places to their near and dear ones first. I tried for my kid. Also, one thing I have found is that most of these British Sikhs have long been engulfed in casteism which they brought with them from rural backgrounds of Punjab or the Kenyan mainland. What's the point of sending my kid who is mixed (as my other half is caucasian) to this sort of atmosphere where he could/would also be bullied as someone different? Also in Southall, they have so many gurdwaras and only one Sikh school to cater for such a large population. Can these gurdwara pardhans please wake up and think about the community? Often. they are taking off each other's turbans in full public view when they have disputes over the gurdwara politics. As for my kid, I will try and teach him Gurmukhi myself.
2: Amarjit Singh Padda (Southall, United Kingdom), September 07, 2010, 4:12 PM.
I congratulate the Singh Sabha on a wonderful achievement. This has been an aspiration and dream for the local community for a long time. The sangat and gurdwara members are all due the utmost appreciation for all their hard work and efforts towards this project. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the current committee for seeing this project through. However, it would be nice to see the founding and visionary individuals that conceived this idea also involved in key decisions to do with the running of the school. I request the current committee, who have done an excellent job in implementing the start of the school, to enroll those who are now no longer present in the committee and forget or sideline them. Once again, I congratulate the community and everyone involved in this amazing initiative on the success of its commencement.
3: Sarabjit Singh (U.S.A.), September 07, 2010, 6:18 PM.
Recently I was in England for a talk and visited a Sikh student group. Out of 100 students, 95% had their hair cut. I was shocked and then visiting a relative's wedding in which out of 500 people there were only 2 little kids with a joorrah. I still vividly remember the image of a turbaned Sikh walking downstairs, totally drunk, swaying from one side to another. Alcohol ruled the show. In light of the above, it is imperative to have schools that instill Sikh values from an early age onwards as the parents are not doing it. There is a museum in Detroit called Motown Museum where its music had a profound influence then and today (Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Four Tops, etc). I have gone there and it is the basement of someone's house! You don't need glitter and gold to have such a strong influence. You need the dedication and passion of a few. I hope that your vision will inspire others to change a pretty sad situation in U.K today within the community.
4: Raj (Canada), September 07, 2010, 11:33 PM.
I raised two boys in the most redneck area of Canada. They both went through the public school system. Neither one of them were discriminated against until a bunch of Sikhs (clean shaven) joined the school. They were the ones who discriminated against my kids. Today, they're university educated professionals and practicing Sikhs. We need to educate and prepare our kids for the real world. The strong Sikh values are given by parents, not at schools.
5: Taran (London, United Kingdom), September 08, 2010, 4:03 AM.
That's true, Raj ji - what you said. I don't know how many readers have been to Southall or are from West London (UK). I hate to go to the area but have no choice. Just next to the Havelock Road Gurdwara is Havelock Arms Pub. You can easily spot drug addicts or alcoholic youth from back home (Punjab) and even some British Sikhs or Punjabis all around the area. They would not let any single woman, mother, daughter, sister or wife pass on the street without misbehaving. You can easily see the sale/purchase of drugs there. The whole area is a big blot on the image of the Sikh and local community. Gurdwara bigwigs are far away from their roles and responsibilities. The completion of the school would now be seen as a personal or organizational achievement by some of them, but the fact is that there are so many issues. I hate to say this but I know personally as I have lived here and this gurdwara politics is run by thugs and goons (it is the case with these brahminical Sikhs all over the world). They have no respect for Sikh values. They have their own families and friends involved in the running of the gurdwaras and the schools and have their own kids and grand-kids who benefit from these schools. And the Sikh sangat as a whole is providing them with the funds. But not everyone is benefiting. The gurdwara committees are busy scoring their own agendas against each other. I am fed up of all this. That's why I am sending my kid to a Catholic school. At least he will be a normal human being who would not see the ugly side of the community.
6: Gur Singh (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.), September 08, 2010, 5:00 AM.
One Sikh school per 3000 counts of the Sikh population should be the target till 2020 in all western countries with Sikh citizens.
7: Zorawar Singh (Richmond Hill, New York, U.S.A.), September 08, 2010, 10:11 AM.
It's great to hear that our brothers and sisters in the U.K. have built a Sikh school for the Sikh youth (the future of Sikhism) but, at the same time, I have to agree with the comments by my brothers Taran and Raj on this as well.
8: N. Singh (Canada), September 08, 2010, 9:14 PM.
Taran ji: I totally get your point! However, on a separate note, having had many Catholic friends who would no doubt back me on this, there is nothing 'normal' about a Catholic school! It's all about 'hell-fire' and 'damnation'. The kids come out with a huge guilt complex and spend the rest of their lives trying to get rid of it and 'running' away from the Church. Your best bet is a private school with no religious denomination. At least that way the kids will get to make lifelong friends with children of middle-class and influence people. If you need religion, then Anglican (as opposed to Catholic) is the best way to go ... it minimizes the 'burning in hell' thing, etc!
9: Taran (London, United Kingdom), September 09, 2010, 11:08 AM.
N. Singh ji: - Sorry, but I didn't mean that way. I am sending my kid to a school as it is convenient, has a good record for subjects like science, maths. It does not matter whether it's Catholic or not. How many readers here on this forum would proudly boast that they went to a convent school in India in the hills of Shimla, Dehradun, Kasauli, etc.? Most of us would be big on the public school education we had. Even though these schools did not teach a word of Punjabi till matriculation class or did not have subjects on Sikh religion. Here in the U.K., most Catholic schools are only Catholic by name.