How Young People’s Politics Participation Can Be Connected to the Lack of Political Education in British Schools.

The turnout, or lack thereof from young voters has been a hot topic recently. But are young people apathetic to the current political climate and is it solely their responsibility to participate? Is it not a collective societal responsibility to ensure they receive the education, information, understanding and confidence to be active citizens?

In the 2019 election, less than half of people between the ages of 18-24 turned up to cast their ballot (BBC, 2024). The public has increased concern for the political interests of the younger generation and the consequences political apathy can have for British democracy. Therefore, the conversation of; ‘how do we fix this’ has become important. However, there seems to be a lot of important reflection that many contributors to this debate seem to not take into account, and it isn’t until the past couple of years that the conversation around political literacy in schools has gotten any traction.

The younger generation in the UK has grown up in a time of global turbulence, and an increasing amount of information about the current economic and political situation at their fingertips. From the 2008 financial crisis to Brexit, terrorism, COVID-19, the cost of living crisis to the Palestinian genocide, there is no doubt that young British people have grown up more or less conscious of the current political climate in one way or the other. With the staggering development in technology and social media, the youth seems to be exposed to more news and information than ever before, how is it then that young people’s political participation is decreasing, and how can this mass consumption of information help education around citizenship?

According to recent reports, two in five young people (school-age) don’t understand what politicians do (Save The Children, 2024). Additionally, another report showed that only one in four agree or strongly agree that they can be politically active and have that make a difference (Weinberg, Shout Out UK and Speaking Citizens, 2021). If this is the attitude and knowledge that most young people possess when going into university or adult life, it seems that there is less of an issue of political apathy but rather a complete lack of well-rounded political education. Reports show that not only is there a lack of political literacy being taught in school but that access to political education is disproportionate between public and private institutions and different areas, therefore we have to understand that this is a deep issue within the education system and the inequality between different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Figure 1, resources in political education provided to students compared by levels of student deprivation (Weinberg et al., 2021).

There are an abundance of reasons for the lack of political education in British schools, particularly in the public sector. To name a few; there is not enough money or time, parental concerns, meeting grade requirements, and teacher expertise (Weinberg, 2021). Teachers seem to be aware of the issue with the current curriculum but do not have the tools, resources or education themselves to be able to provide that for their students. This is what is important when it comes to this debate where the individual schools and teachers themselves are blamed for the disparity in political education.

Figure 2, teachers identify the obstacles to providing political education in schools (Weinberg et al., 2021).

Thousands of English students leave school never having been taught anything about politics, and one in five schools “teach no political literacy, citizenship lessons or even one-off political events.”(Weinberg, 2021). This becomes an issue when it is proven that how and if people vote is greatly decided by their level of education, the area they reside in and their age (University of Cambridge, n.d.). S0 how do we help solve this issue?

In 2019 Shout Out UK (2022) launched a political literacy program that reached nearly 3000 young people across England and Wales. The results of this program are clear and prove the need for proper political education in the school curriculums. They found that students who participated in the program had a significant rise in confidence and knowledge of British democracy after completing the program. For example, only about 15% of students agreed or strongly agreed they felt motivated to create change and work with others, whereas post-programme it was an incredible 88% who agreed or strongly agreed.

Figure 3, Key Insights, page 8 (Shout Out UK, 2020).

Additionally, it is important to not just dump this new curriculum on teachers who are already overworked and underpaid, but also changes in the teacher training curriculum for all teachers to be better equipped to educate and be able to answer questions students may have. It is also of great importance to teach students the art of sifting information and sources, not only because it is difficult to form an opinion with an overload of different information but also to evaluate credible sources. Another way to do this would be to make this possible is to give one teacher the responsibility to include citizen and political literacy into the curriculum and also train teachers, which proved to be effective at St Birinus boys school (Fearn, 2022). This cannot be done without more time and money put in by politicians in the education sector.

Last but not least, it is all of our collective responsibility to participate, educate and help ourselves and each other on our political journeys. Though the system is set up to fail us young people (particularly those already at a disadvantage) when it comes to our political education, it is even more imperative for us to take our voice and influence into our own hands and use it. Go vote, go to that protest, boycott exploitative companies, and write to our politicians. This is more important than ever as our political system is failing us and those around us, our lack of political education is an explanation but not an excuse. The only way we are going to be able to provide a well-rounded political education for future generations is by using our voices, calling out the disparity in education, and not giving up when we are told no or people want to make us feel like our voices are small because they are not small if we all use them in unison.

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