A circular from the British Ministry of Education enrages teachers. Published this Thursday, the text enjoins them to respect political impartiality in the classrooms. A directive deemed unnecessary and insulting by the educational community, which comes after a primary class wrote to the Prime Minister to criticize him for his lies.
With our correspondent in London, Emeline Wine
He prefers to remain anonymous but this computer science and media education teacher does not see what the circular brings new. ” This is something we teachers have been doing for a long time. The law requires us to be apolitical, he explains. We try to be neutral and balanced, we don’t want to impose our ideas on the students; we want them to learn to form their own opinion “.
The circular recommends caution around topics such as the israeli-palestinian conflict or climate change. Retired, Peter Bone taught civics and sex education for over thirty years. ” Here in Nottingham we have a Holocaust education centre, where I took my fourth graders every year. Of course, some parents feared it was propaganda for Israel. We had to reassure them, show them that this was not the case. It’s all about dialogue ! “says the retiree.
For him, the circular only serves to divert the attention of a government in fall in the polls. Niamh Sweeney of the NEU teachers’ union is concerned about the image of education. ” I am afraid that some people think that teachers are not already impartial, or that some people no longer dare to talk about topics that are important to young people, such as climate change “.
Rather than recommendations, the teaching community is calling for more resources.