Hansard Society response to National Curriculum review - Jan 20, 2011
Young people need to
learn about their democracy
Responding
to today's government announcement of a review of the National Curriculum in England,
Michael Raftery, Director of the Hansard Society's Citizenship
Education programme, commented:
‘Educating
young people about how politics works and involving them in democracy, the
central ambition of Citizenship,
supports one of the principals of the review - that of providing pupils with the knowledge
and understanding that enables them to take their place as educated members of
society.
'The
Hansard Society hopes the results of the review reflect the contribution
made by teachers in delivering the Democracy and Justice strand of the Citizenship curriculum and improving young people's
political literacy. There is much work to do in making Citizenship
more effective in a greater number of schools. It would be a huge blow to the political
culture of the UK
if, rather than improvements being made, the entitlement for young people to
learn about how their democracy functions was lost.'
For further
information, contact Virginia Gibbons at the Hansard Society on 0207 438 1225
or 07812 765 552 or email mediaprog@hansarrd.lse.ac.uk
Notes to
editors
- The Hansard Society's Citizenship Education Programme has engaged
over one million young people in politics and democracy since 2002 through
projects such as the Y Vote Mock Elections (www.mockelections.co.uk) and
HeadsUp (www.headsup.org.uk)
- The Hansard Society is a
founding member of the Democratic Life Coalition (www.democraticlife.org.uk)
- As the findings of the
National Foundation for Educational Research (NfER) Longitudinal study
into Citizenship have shown, Citizenship
can also support the government's ambition to provide a curriculum:'outlining
the essential knowledge and understanding that pupils should be expected to
have to enable them to take their place as educated members of society'.