Comment, analysis, news

Visits to schools by BAE Systems and the RAF

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.

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ForcesWatch welcomes Welsh Government stance over military visits to schools

The Welsh Government has been praised by ForcesWatch over a “groundbreaking” decision to support in principle more research into how the armed forces operate in secondary schools in Wales.

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Government Cadet Programme Cynically Targeting the Poor

"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."

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New critical thinking resources from The Citizenship Foundation

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.

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Updates on £50m for over 300 new Cadet units in disadvantaged state schools

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?”)

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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.

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‘Character Building’ range of HM Armed Forces toys

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.

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Update on Army attempt to obtain sensitive student data for recruitment purposes

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”.

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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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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.

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