In light (or lack thereof) of today’s solar eclipse, primary students and parents from North Primary School in Southall, West London, were shocked to find out that the school was banning their students from watching the rare solar eclipse due to ‘religious and cultural reasons’. Located in South Wall, or it is sometimes called, Little India, the North Primary school is at the center of a barrage of complaints from the parents.
The school mandated that students were not allowed to view the eclipse directly, and instead must watch it on television screens. North Primary School is located in Southwall, a large suburb in west London, England, with half of its residents being of Indian or Pakistani descent. It is also home to a large population of Hindus.
Head teacher, Ivor Johnstone, has not made an official comment, but the ‘religious and cultural reasons’ might be attributed to the Hindu faith. Some Hindu scriptures say that watching a solar eclipse creates impurity and fundamentalists believe that one should bathe and chant directly after viewing one.
Parents were not pleased by the school’s decision, stating that in this case, religious superstition had overshadowed science.
A parent, Phil Belman, whose seven year old daughter goes to the school, told The Evening Standard: “I am extremely upset about it. My child went in having spent an hour preparing and making up her pinhole camera. This is an issue about scientific matters versus religious superstition,” while another parent said, “I am outraged – is it going to be Darwin next? We will be like mid America.”
The children would be hard pressed to view the solar eclipse anyway because of the overcast today in London, which Mr. Johnstone cited as a reason to assuage parental concerns.
However, Mr. Belman and other parents are still outraged. In addition to previous comments, Mr. Belman states, “It is a very diverse school with kids from a lot of backgrounds including our own. They take a balanced approach as a whole, so this is completely out of the blue.”
Mr. Belman stated that if there was prior warning, he and potentially other concerned parents could have removed their children from the school for the day.
But Belman stated, “…it wasn’t an option. This was very last minute and a knee jerk reaction.”
