Monday, April 16, 2007

An interesting point...

... well made in today's Indy letters:

Sir: The Department of Education and Skills, in conjunction with the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs, will this week begin distributing the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, to all 3,385 secondary schools in England.

According to the DfES, "influencing the opinions of children is crucial to developing a long-term view on the environment among the public" (press release, February 2007). This is an explicit admission by the Government that its intention in circulating the film is to indoctrinate children politically.

Such deliberate political indoctrination of children is contrary to the Education Act 2002, which at section 78 says the school curriculum for maintained schools is to be "balanced and broadly based", and section 79 requires the Secretary of State, local education authorities, governing bodies and headteachers to exercise their functions "with a view to securing that the curriculum for every maintained school satisfies the requirements of section 78".

Political spin is bad enough, but when we start brainwashing our own children we are finished.

I write as one concerned more than many about where we are headed, but beyond the question of legality have to also wonder if this is a bit of indocrination too far.

No comments: