Education: Citizenship

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for giving us the opportunity to debate this hugely important issue. I was much taken with his suggestion, which is worthy of consideration. But, of course, before that we must get citizenship education taught properly and correctly in our schools. I think that citizenship education is vital for ensuring that young people are an active and valued part of our society and, moreover, that they are involved in their communities. All too often, young people are seen in a negative way.

Let us reflect for a moment on some figures that were collected by the Hansard Society. We know for a fact that in the 2010 general election, only 44% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted, although the good news was that that was an increase of 7% on the previous general election, but still well below the average turnout of 65%. Moreover, the Hansard Society research suggests that only one-third of 18 to 24 year-olds claim to know anything about politics while, rather alarmingly, 90% of young people do not know who their MP is or how to contact them.

In my view, citizenship is not about reaching for a syllabus, dusting it down, teaching it and giving students a body of facts. It is about creating an ethos in the school and ensuring that pervades everything that young people do. It has to be about the ethos of the school, whether that is schools having school councils and young people knowing about them, electing their councillors and debating issues; whether it is doing voluntary work in the community—at my school we would go to the local care centre and sing Christmas carols or work at the local Jaguar Land Rover factory; whether it is doing charity appeals; whether it is shadowing people; whether it is bringing speakers in from the local GP to the local midwife; or whether it is having a rolling programme of pupils observing school governing bodies, as we had in my school.

The good news is that citizenship as a programme of study will continue in key stages 3 and 4. We are out to consultation on that but the first draft, as good as it is, is very factually orientated with no real indication of the sort of things that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was talking about, so no real voluntary or community engagement. I was interested to see that our Prime Minister last year asked Dame Julia Cleverdon and Amanda Jordan to review how we can increase the quality and quantity of social action and engagement by young people between the ages of 10 and 20. There were some interesting facts in their interim report. They found that although there is a wide range of social activity in the UK, much of it takes place in the voluntary sector and very little within schools and businesses. They also found a lack of knowledge and understanding about social action and opportunities and their value in the education sector was very limited. Finally, they found that young people have no facility to develop social action over time. I hope the Minister when replying might suggest it is important that we recognise that fact in the curriculum.

It is also interesting to see what young people think citizenship is about. The National Foundation for Educational Research looked at young people. What did they think being a good citizen meant? Well, 43% thought it was about people having access to their rights—education, health and housing. Interestingly, 39% thought it meant working together to make sure that all members of society are treated fairly. What a lovely result. Only 10% listed voting, politics and government. If we are going to get citizenship right, it must be about the quality of the teaching as well as the quality of the syllabus. Far too often citizenship is seen as a Cinderella subject. I can remember my wife who teaches PE and French—a strange combination—sometimes as a chore being sent in to teach citizenship, never having had any training in it or understanding of it. So we have to get that right and we also have to make sure that from time to time we actually inspect the subject as well.

I will make two further quick observations. First, there is a marvellous organisation run by and for young people called “Bite the Ballot”. Members of all parts of the House might have been involved in it. It is about encouraging young people to understand democracy in all its forms and giving young people a voice in the issues. I was invited to one meeting in the Jubilee Room, packed with young people, and I was astounded by their ability to communicate issues, to listen and to reason. If we can get that happening with this organisation, why can we not get it happening in our schools as well?

I end on a bit of a sad note, and this might seem a bit carping, but we talk about a national curriculum and we laud the fact that we are going to have citizenship in our national curriculum for key stages 3 and 4. The fact is that it is not a national curriculum because half our secondary schools can choose not to teach it. I was sad to see an announcement by Stephen Twigg, who I admire greatly, saying that the Labour Party was going to hand over those responsibilities to all our schools. So in a sense it is only this party which believes that a national curriculum should be, as it says on the label, for all children—slimmed down, yes, but all children should be taught those important things, including citizenship.