LONDON: Conservative Mus­­­lim school leaders in Britain’s second biggest city of Birmingham conducted an “organised campaign” to impose faith-based ideology on their pupils, Education Secretary Michael Gove said on Monday.

Clashes between Muslim governors and non-Muslim senior staff had led to a “culture of fear and intimidation” in which some teachers felt forced to leave their jobs, leaving those remaining free to impose a narrow curriculum, the minister said.

Gove was reporting the findings of two official investigations into allegations of an Islamist plot to take over the leadership of state-funded schools in Birmingham with the intention of imposing a religious agenda.

The allegations renewed concerns about the risk to young people in Britain of Islamic extremism, and exposed a rift at the heart of the government about how to tackle religious radicalism.

However, some community leaders in Birmingham, a former industrial centre which has one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities, said the row was baseless and driven by Islamophobia.

Inspections by Ofsted, the schools watchdog, concluded that five schools were providing an “inadequate” standard of education due to failings that the chief inspector of schools, Michael Wilshaw, said were “deeply worrying”.

“Ofsted states that head teachers reported an organised campaign to target schools in order to alter their character and ethos, with a culture of fear and intimidation,” Gove told the House of Commons.

“Ofsted concluded that governors are trying to impose and promote a narrow, faith-based ideology in what are non-faith schools, specifically by narrowing the curriculum, manipulating staff appointments, and in using school funds inappropriately.”

A separate report by the Education Funding Agency, a branch of the education ministry, revealed that at one school Azan was broadcast across the playground.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2014