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The most recent HeadsUp forum - Youth Citizenship Commission :: Are young people allergic to politics? - took place between 17 November and 5 December 2008. The Youth Citizenship Commission was set up following on from the Governance of Britain report in 2007, to look at ways of developing young people’s understanding of citizenship and increasing their participation in politics. The Commissioners were tasked with finding out what citizenship means to young people, whether they think they should be able to vote at 16 and how our political system can best listen and respond to their concerns. They used the HeadsUp forum to find out what young people up and down the country think about these issues.
This HeadsUp debate was the most popular ever, with young people telling the Commissioners exactly what they don't like about politics, how it can be more child friendly and what can be done to promote politics to young people. For more information about what the young people said about citizenship, politics, their communities and volunteering download the Youth Citizenship Commission forum report.doc
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Upon entering the British Library's free exhibition "Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain's Freedoms and Rights", visitors are tagged with a bar coded wristband - odd, for an exhibition on liberty you might think. After visiting the exhibition last week, Cit Ed Intern, Stephen, explains...
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The Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) in partnership with the Hansard Society, Institute for Citizenship and Parliament's Education Service, held an event in Portcullis House on November 19, 2008 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Crick Report.
The conference discussed what had been achieved over the last 10 years and the future of citizenship education.
Read more about the Ten Years after Crick Report conference
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The latest HeadsUp forum is open now and will run from from Monday 17 November to Friday 5 December. The Youth Citizenship Commission was set up by Gordon Brown to look at ways of developing young people’s understanding of citizenship and increase participation in politics. There are 13 Commissioners including young people, academics, teachers and journalists.
The Commission will report to the Prime Minister in spring 2009 after HeadsUp users have had their chance to give their feedback on the report through the HeadsUp forum (23 February - 3 March).
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Young people and the US Presidential election
Now that the dust has settled on the US Election we look at how successful Obama and McCain were in engaging young voters.
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Building on the previous run of eight successful EU and All That! conferences, the Hansard Society will be running a further six teacher conferences with the UK Office of the European Parliament across the UK.
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Immigration is an issue that is often high up on the list of priorities for people in the UK. In the most recent survey carried out by polling company Ipsos MORI 11% of the people asked rated immigration/race relations as the most important issue facing Britain today. A quarter in the survery said it was one of the most important issues facing Britain today.
The young people in the HeadsUp forum discussed the following key questions:
- The free movement of people in Europe - how has it affected Britain? Is the free movement of people within Europe a good idea?
- What effect does immigration have on British communities? Do you think the new British citizenship tests are useful to teach immigrants the things they need to know about the UK?
- Can our public services cope with the demands of more people? Is it right for the UK to take skilled workers from poorer countries that might need them more?
Click here for the Immigration and the UK forum report.
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The House of Lords recently published a report on waste
reduction and, thanks to the What a
Waste! competition, so did young people.
Young people who took part in the
competition received a response to their report from Lord O'Neill of
Clackmannan, Chairman of the Science and Technology Sub-Committee.
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The House of Lords Sub-Committee on Waste Reduction recently asked to hear young people's views on the issue. A report summarising their views and offering recommendations has now been submitted to the House of Lords and is available to download.
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The winners of the 2008 Lord Speakers’ schools competition have attended the winners’ day at the House of Lords and presented their findings to a special sitting of the House of Lords Science and Technology Sub-committee on Waste Reduction.
The competition, run in partnership with the Hansard Society's Citizenship Education Programme, asked young people to submit their ideas on how to reduce the amount of waste the UK produces. Over 87 teams of young people submitted their ideas in the form of short films, animations, collages, essays, research papers and presentations.
While the winners presented their findings in person, every entrant to the competition will have their voice heard by the Sub-Committee as a report compiling the entries has been submitted to Lord O’Neill for response.