DfES guidance to higher education on Islamic extremism

The Department for Education and Skills has published guidelines to help universities and other higher education institutions tackle Islamic extremism on campuses. As the Times reports, reaction to the advice has been mixed, with some universities criticising the document's emphasis on Islamic terrorism.

Further Education News has a link to a text file containing the guidelines. Click here to access the file directly.

Essentially the guidelines identify a number of areas which universities should especially keep an eye on - student societies, literature, outside speakers, internet use - and, if they spot anything suspicious, inform the police. Having worked in higher education, I can confidently predict that most, if not all,universities will issue reams of internal guidance as to how the guidelines are to be interpreted, probably along the lines of: if you have any suspicions, inform a senior staff member in your department who in turn will pass the information to somebody higher up the hierarchy, they then, in turn, will pass it up even higher and so on until it reaches the top.

Tags: Higher Education, Islam, War on Terror, Universities.