(Age) Victoria’s private Islamic schools are the fastest growing schools in the state, almost doubling their population in just eight years.
Combined, student numbers at the state’s 10 Islamic schools grew at six times the rate of enrolment growth at government schools and nine times the rate at Catholic schools between 2010 and 2018.
Professor Mohamad Abdalla, the director of the Centre for Islamic Thought and Education at UniSA, said most Australian Muslim parents sent their children to Islamic schools to preserve faith and identity.
But he said there was another important reason Muslim communities were gravitating to their own schools: Islamophobia.
