Plans to build a multimillion-dollar secondary boarding school for senior Muslim boys in South Dunedin have been put on hold after the project failed to get financial support from the Ministry of Education.
The former St Patrick's Primary School site was bought in April this year by the Al-Noor Charitable Trust, a Christchurch-based charity established to develop Islamic educational facilities in New Zealand.
The trust plans to spend about $8 million building the An-Nur Kiwi Academy (AKA) on the site - a non-profit school under charitable status, which will accommodate about 100 year 11 to 13 boys from across the country.
The plans show a new gymnasium with a footprint about the same size as the existing classroom block, a large two-storeyed hostel and cafeteria block about six times the size of the existing classroom block, and a mosque.
Initial plans showed the trust hoped to have the academy up and running by February next year, but it suffered a minor setback after the project failed to gain Ministry of Education funding as a charter school.
Trust chairman Dr Mohammad Alayan said the trust's academy proposal was among 35 applicants to the Ministry of Education to establish a charter school.
''Sad to say, our application was not approved as the ministry received 35 applications and they selected five for funding.
''The impact of this outcome is that the AKA education programme starting date has been deferred to a later date, due to financial limitations.''
Dr Alayan said it was now hoped the academy would be operational some time between 2015 and 2017.
In the meantime, the Al-Noor Charitable Trust board of trustees was considering various scenarios to make the best use of the premises until the academy project started.
These included leasing the premises to education organisations in a bid to generate income to financially support the academy project, and support the community at large by providing a venue for education use.
The trust also hopes to use the premises for early childhood education services for the Dunedin Muslim community, he said.
''A community survey has been performed and the need has been established.
''At this point, I am pleased to indicate that Al-Noor Charitable Trust is a pioneer in Muslim early childhood education in New Zealand, as An-Nur Childcare Centre Christchurch has been operating since 2000 and proved successful academically and financially.''
Dr Alayan said the trust wanted to establish the academy because it believed Muslim children attending state secular schools were subjected to an educational environment which pressured them to adopt values which were contradictory to Islamic values, such as evolution theory, sexual relations outside marriage and drinking alcohol.
The academy's aim is to provide a high-quality education with an emphasis on the Islamic value system, but Dr Alayan said the New Zealand national curriculum would be taught by about 15 to 20 staff, including qualified Islamic studies and Arabic language teachers.
