Letter: Religious schools

Sir: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown regrets the increase (admittedly, very slow) in the number of single religion schools and bemoans the loss of the dream of "Britishness" ("Why my heart sank to see the opening of our first Sikh school", 2 December).

Since the beginning of this century, Arab immigrants, especially to the US and Australia, desired more than anything else to mingle with and become part of the society they had adopted. That worked fairly well for the first and second generation. However, to the great surprise of social scientists, the third and fourth generations are suddenly searching for their roots. They are rich and affluent, with time on their hands. They are seeking to learn to read and speak Arabic despite the fact that neither their parents nor their grandparents could or would. They are at the core of the American Arab lobby in Washington.

It leads me to believe that the Eastern communities who are actively seeking the opening of more ethnic and religious schools in the UK will prove to be wiser in the long run. Maybe they have learnt an important lesson from Arab and other immigrant groups elsewhere.

FAWZI GERMANUS

London W8