Michael Gove has seized on a finding by Ofsted that a "culture of fear and intimidation" existed in some schools by announcing that the government will require all 20,000 primary and secondary schools to "promote British values".
Gove's plan is to implement values that will include the primacy of British civil and criminal law, religious tolerance and opposition to gender segregation.
He also announced that Ofsted would press ahead with no-notice inspections of schools.
Ofsted found that governors of a number of the schools had made, or tried to make, changes to the curriculum and policies based on their own religious beliefs. In response the education secretary said states schools could in future all be required to teach values such as democracy, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths.
However freedom from central control and the ability of academies to teach to their own religious beliefs, free of central government control, has long been promoted by Gove.
But, nevertheless, Gove told MPs on Monday: "The overwhelming majority of British Muslim parents want their children to grow up in schools that open doors rather than close minds. It is on their behalf that we have to act."
But what exactly are "British values", you ask?
Luckily, Twitter is here to help out the education secretary:
In what is being described by ministers as a decisive shift away from moral relativism in the classroom, the education secretary took action after a landmark series of reports by the schools inspectorate into 21 Birmingham secular schools found an atmosphere of intimidation, a narrow, faith-based ideology, manipulation of staff appointments and inappropriate use of school funds.
A separate EFA report into Park View Educational Trust (PVET), which runs three of the schools rated inadequate by Ofsted and has been at the heart of the alleged takeover plot, concluded it has ''many weaknesses'' and restricted its curriculum to a ''conservative Islamic perspective''.
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