Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing mandatory education on antisemitism in schools.

The department is committed to tackling antisemitism and all forms of prejudice. Education is a key component of building a fairer and more equal society.

As part of a broad and balanced curriculum, there are many opportunities in the existing curriculum for schools to teach about antisemitism, including through:

• Citizenship education, which is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4, and teaches about religious diversity, mutual respect and understanding.
• Relationships education, which is compulsory in all schools, and teaches about the impact of prejudice and the importance of respect.
• Religious education, which is compulsory in all state-funded schools, and educates about religious tolerance.

Young people should be taught the history of the Holocaust. Effective Holocaust education, and learning about other genocides, supports pupils to learn about the possible consequences of antisemitism and other forms of extremism and to help reduce the spread of antisemitism, religious intolerance and other forms of intolerance and extremism.

The department has been supporting greater understanding of the Holocaust by providing funding to the Holocaust Educational Trust to provide the Lessons from Auschwitz programme, and to UCL Centre for Holocaust Education which provides a programme of continuing professional development for teachers.