Found 431 Results
Page 18 of 31
Updates on £50m for over 300 new Cadet units in disadvantaged state schools
13/07/2015
Here are several updates following last week’s government budget announcement that £50 million would go to expanding the number of state school Combined Cadet Forces to 500 (an increase of over 300), focusing on disadvantaged schools.
* Criticisms of the funding decision have come from the National Youth Agency (“it’s a real missed opportunity not to have invested some of it in good quality youth work which delivers ‘character’ and a whole lot more besides for young people“), and the Quakers (“Ultimately, militarism in schools leads to two kinds of recruitment: the recruitment of teenagers into the armed forces, and the recruitment of wider society to be war ready. Both go undebated. Why can’t we invest in education for peace, not war?”)
The Unseen March
08/07/2015
The Unseen March – short film made by Quakers in Britain with former SAS Ben Griffin, activist Mark Thomas and educationalists on ‘military ethos’ in schools.
Cadet units in state schools to increase five-fold with £50 million budget boost
The number of cadet units in state schools is to increase five-fold by 2020, George Osborne announced today in the Summer Budget.
‘Character Building’ range of HM Armed Forces toys
06/07/2015
A ‘Character Building’ series of armed forces toys licensed by the MoD is discredited by the new Veterans for Peace UK short film on some of the things that these toys don’t show, and by developments in ‘character education’ that indicate there is no need for ‘military ethos’ initiatives in UK schools.
Update on Army attempt to obtain sensitive student data for recruitment purposes
30/06/2015
Following our recent piece on the news story that the Ministry of Defence requested access (which the Department for Education rejected) to the database of sensitive data of school students in England, to help the Army better target its recruitment practice, it has emerged that the Army – in collaboration with Royal Holloway College and the mobile phone app specialists DotNet – was specifically seeking to match individuals’ data with specific Army jobs, with a mobile phone app an apparent intended output.
This and other revelations undermine the claims by the MoD quoted in the original news coverage of the story that they aren’t targeting individuals for recruitment, and that the request was an error that had been “halted”.
The British Armed Forces need to stop targeting and recruiting children
The freelance journalist Lee Williams gives an overview of the UK military’s youth engagement, and presents a strong ethical case for why the armed forces should stop recruiting children.
Armed forces not required to offer soldiers aged 16-17 the same standard of education that is required in civilian life
Compulsory education for 16-17s: research reveals that the armed forces are not required to give child soldiers the same minimum standard as civilian institutions. The minimum attainment requirement of the Army (which has the vast majority of children in the armed forces) is shown to be very low.
Military ethos in schools is not character education but recruitment propaganda, claim Mark Thomas and Clare Short
In a new film from the Quakers, comedian Mark Thomas and former MP Clare Short claim the Government is misusing the education system to encourage support for its wars and to promote careers in the armed forces.
British Veterans Made Some Dark Films to Protest the UK Army’s Recruitment of 16-Year-Olds
An article on the context of the striking new short film from Veterans for Peace UK, Action Man: Battlefield Casualties , which presents a new range of war-traumatised action men.
Armed Forces Day and other ways of manufacturing consent
27/06/2015
A year ago we wrote how Armed Forces Day symbolises the creep of militarism into our civil institutions. Far from being merely a reflection of public respect, this creep is the result of a concerted effort, which can be tracked through policy initiatives and is fuelled by concern that the military are losing control of the public narrative around defence. We noted how these public displays, which are ostensibly about supporting ‘the men and women who make up the Armed Forces’, (including Camo Day, Reserves Day and the Poppy Appeal), act to market the military as an institution and to build a positive and uncritical narrative around it and support its recruitment needs.
A year, and another Armed Forces Day, later, we look here at how militarism continues to creep into schools and colleges and how recent developments further embed military approaches and interests within the education system.
War marketed as family entertainment
26/06/2015
Letter to The Independent (see all signatories below).
Welsh Gov told to review the way British military recruits in Welsh schools
23/06/2015
The Welsh Government has been told to review of the way the British Armed Forces are allowed to recruit in Welsh schools.
War veterans call for rethink on recruitment of 16-year-olds
Former professionals condemn recruitment of teenagers by ‘pushing the notion of a noble military career to children’.
Critical scrutiny of military ethos initiatives continues
10/06/2015
An example of how critical scrutiny of the Military Ethos in Schools programme is being sustained from people outside of ForcesWatch, comes from an Institute of Education conference in February 2015, where Victoria Basham, senior lecturer in Politics at Exeter University, gave a critical overview of the Department for Education’s Military Ethos in Schools programme. Her talk was filmed, and can be viewed online here…
Page 18 of 31