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French soldiers condemned for having primary school pupils try out unloaded rifles
21/10/2015
French soldiers have been criticised by the French MoD and local education authorities for having school pupils aged 10 and under try out unloaded assault rifles. There had been no similar outcry regarding similar armed forces activities in schools in the UK, which are driven by the UK MoD.
Army officer recruitment drive in universities
A major new Army officer recruitment drive is targeting university students. Why is this acknowledged as ‘recruitment’, when similar activities in schools are not?
UK Army Recruiting Group – Eligibility quick reference guide
15/10/2015
This recruiting guide, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, indicates among other things that, recruits aged between 16 and 16½ must be given jobs in combat roles (or join as drivers in the logistics corps) which carry the highest levels of risk. (p.8)
Armed forces visits to schools debated in the Welsh Assembly!
30/09/2015
Our reaction to today’s Welsh Assembly debate on armed forces visits to schools in Wales, which represents a major step forward in the scrutiny of the ethics of the military’s engagement with the education system.
Visits to schools by BAE Systems and the RAF
29/09/2015
Evidence suggests that the BAE Systems-RAF team that visits primary and secondary schools ostensibly to encourage students to take an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, gives students a sanitised, glamourised image of both BAE and the RAF.
Government Cadet Programme Cynically Targeting the Poor
16/09/2015
“The Tory Government are preying on school children in some of our most deprived areas by setting up more and more military cadet units as a step to recruiting them into the armed forces.”
Concerns about armed forces visits to secondary schools in Wales
21/08/2015
This briefing is a response to the 2012-13 Welsh Assembly Petitions Committee’s investigation into UK armed forces ‘recruitment’ in schools in Wales, following the petition Stop the Army Recruiting in Schools (P-04-432) submitted by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Wales. The Petition Committee’s final report on their consideration of the petition was published in June 2015.
New critical thinking resources from The Citizenship Foundation
28/07/2015
The Citizenship Foundation’s new resources focus on facilitating primary school students’ critical thinking skills. Discussing the military in this rigorous way would give students a more balanced impression of armed forces life.
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.
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