Former MI5 spies are being recruited to root out Islamic fanatics in schools, Education Secretary Michael Gove said yesterday. Ministers are understood to be so worried about the influence of Muslim preachers of hate and other extremists in the classrooms that a new unit has been set up.
They have recruited former members of the secret service with expertise in the Islamist terrorist threat to investigate. Mr Gove is concerned that comprehensive schools and the Government’s new generation of “free schools” may be targeted by extremists.
“We have been working with people who have been in the Intelligence Services in order to ensure that there is no-one from the wrong sort of background involved in education,” he said. “And, I should add, not just with the free schools,” Mr Gove told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.