Sir Hamid Patel was appointed the interim Ofsted Chair in England. Patel, who has been a member of the Ofsted board since 2019, will serve in the post until a successor is found for Dame Christine Ryan, who announced in November she would be stepping down.
Ryan will leave her role at the end of March, following four-and-a-half years as chair.
He will serve as interim chair of the Ofsted board for up to five months, until a new chair is appointed.
He is the first religious leader to be appointed to the position.
Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, inspects and regulates education, training, and children’s social care services to raise standards and improve lives. They inspect a wide range of organizations, from childminders to training providers and schools, and share their findings.
He Seems an Unlikely Choice
Sir Hamid has been on the board of Ofsted since 2019 and has led Star Academies since its inception in 2010. He was previously the headteacher of Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School in Blackpool.
While in that role, the school became one of the first in the country to urge pupils to wear a hijab outside of school.
Guidance reportedly told pupils to “recite the Koran at least once a week” and “not bring stationery to school that contains un-Islamic images”, such as pictures of pop stars.
The school was criticised over a visit in 2010 from Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, a Saudi Arabian cleric who had described Jews as “pigs”.
Sheikh Sudais also prayed for God to “terminate” the Jews and, discussing his visit, Sir Hamid told The Sunday Times in 2013: “The girls wanted to see this guy with 5 million followers. They had seen him on YouTube. He stayed 20 minutes.”
There is no suggestion these remarks were made at the school.
Hamid says he wants to improve the education of white boys. Great!
RIP Britain!
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