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Submission to the Education and Skills Committee: Citizenship Education
March 2006
The National Youth Agency Eastgate House
Contact: Jon Boagey Tel: 0116 242 7463
Introduction The National Youth Agency (NYA) believes that young people should have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to their communities, however these might be defined. Youth work offers structured learning opportunities for young people to do this: accredited programmes delivered by local authority and voluntary sector youth services can make a significant contribution to young people's understanding of the world in which they live. The skills young people develop through these programmes contribute to their personal and social development (for example through team work, planning and organising activities, decision making, negotiating with others).
The NYA has supported young people's active citizenship for many years through Home Office, DfES and Local Government Association funded programmes promoting volunteering and young people's participation. There has been an emphasis in this work on how to engage disadvantaged young people including those who are excluded from or exclude themselves from school. We would urge the Select Committee to consider how the citizenship curriculum engages these young people.
We believe that the material accompanying this submission amply illustrates the range of approaches that youth workers employ. By taking into account the views and opinions of young people themselves, it is possible for schools to offer young people valuable insights into a wide range of citizenship themes, including rights and responsibilities of citizens, the importance of voting and the democratic process, the opportunities to bring about change in society, the role of the media and more.
Our response to the Select Committee focuses on the questions where we believe youth work can make a significant contribution to citizenship education.
Initial and in-service training Citizenship forms part of professional training for youth and community workers and for youth support workers. The curriculum requirements of The NYA's Requirements for Professional Validation of higher education programmes leading to qualification as a youth and community worker state that 'young people and their communities' is a key area for any such programme. The disciplinary fields that must be covered include a 'thorough foundation in current issues affecting the personal and social education of young people.....' 'Programmes must be abreast of ...the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Rights of the Child....Current themes and priorities include...the full range of measures and initiatives to engage young people in education, training, work and society, and approaches to promote the participation of young people and facilitate active citizenship' initial and in-service training.'
Role of local authorities in supporting school staff. With adequate resourcing there is great potential for schools to work on citizenship in partnership with local authority-funded voluntary and statutory youth organisations, easing the burden on teachers and delivering against the citizenship curriculum. Youth work can support young people's active involvement in the school in a variety of ways - for example through structured sessions, group work, volunteering programmes and so on.
Non-formal educational awards offer a means of accrediting the achievements that many young people undertake as part of their everyday lives, which can often lead learners to access more formal learning opportunities. Many of them have citizenship as a specific focus. They are used with young people from age 13 to 25, and are often used in schools as part of the citizenship curriculum.
The Awards can provide a curriculum framework for personal and social development, based on clear, short-term, and achievable targets, which are flexible enough to meet the needs of the student and offer external recognition of achievement for a learner who may not otherwise achieve this. Examples include ASDAN awards, Connect Youth OCN-accredited awards, Prince's Trust European Programme, Trident Trust's Skills for Life awards and more.
Citizenship education's potential to contribute to community cohesion Citizenship education, where it is delivered so that young people are given the opportunity to voice their opinions and to contribute to change in a meaningful way, can make a powerful contribution to community cohesion. The challenge is for schools to reach out to the communities in which they are located and to find ways to make citizenship meaningful for their young people.
Many schools are not alert enough to the opportunities offered by community-based services and organisations to assist pupils (and staff) to examine local issues in the communities served by the school and to make connections across different curriculum themes.
If the community cohesion agenda are to mean anything in practice, there needs to be more two-way traffic - schools must each be in a position to embrace offers from community groups for involvement in day to day activity through projects (e.g involvement in activity linked to Black History Month) and community-based organisations need to be confident their offers of involvement will be welcomed.
There are some excellent examples of how youth work contributes to community cohesion ( many are highlighted in the accompanying publication Justice, Equality, Our World) and there are opportunities for schools to make links with these programmes - for example by inviting young people to speak about their involvement, to lead training sessions and encourage young people's involvement in opportunities in their community.
Implementation of 'active' aspects of curriculum - i.e. community involvement and involvement in the running of the school As we noted earlier, the challenge for schools is to make the citizenship curriculum less theoretical and more alive. Over 100 local authorities and other organisations including schools are using The NYA/ Local Government Association Hear by Right What's Changed programme as a powerful citizenship education tool to do just this. It is a tool designed by young people that shows evidence of what's changed as a result of their positive contribution (for example to school governance) . It records parallel views of adults and young people and their involvement in the school or community. The companion Act by Right skills development programme is another ideal tool for the active citizenship education curriculum. Again written by young people for young people, it helps to develop students' citizenship education skills. The five modules are: · Getting to know each other and representing others · Getting to know our community · Getting ready for action · Campaigning for change · Finding out what's changed
The emphasis within the Russell Commission recommendations for more volunteering by young people through schools and colleges opens up a rich seam of opportunity. Unfortunately across the country there are no more than a handful of specialist youth volunteering projects that have established genuinely reciprocal relationships with schools. As the Russell recommendations are implemented - particularly the mobilisation of new Youth Volunteer Development Managers and workers - making the links and establishing appropriate school relationships will be key.
The Russell recommendations however suggested too few posts nationwide to enable every school to have access to local youth volunteering specialists. Creating enough momentum for all pupils to have the same offer as exists in some localities with established arrangement is a long way off and undermines the potential demonstrated by some of the best arrangements.
There are multiple barriers to involving under 16s in community involvement projects but the benefits are massive. All the evidence suggests that the earlier the mutual benefits of active involvement can be triggered the more profound the outcomes can be - both for the individual's personal learning and for the wider community. There have been several initiatives to introduce more deliberate arrangements notable the DfES Active Citizenship in Schools initiative linked with Changemakers. The committee's recommendations need to take account of this.
Accompanying publications (submitted with paper copy)
Monica Hingorani: Justice, Equality, Our world: supporting young people's active involvement in strengthening communities, The National Youth Agency, 2004.
Ord. W, and Rowe. D: Action for a Change: an activity pack on young people and social change, The National Youth Agency, Citizenship Foundation and Trust for the Study of Adolescence, 2003.
Rogers. V: Young People and Citizenship: a resource handbook for youth workers, Connexions personal advisers and PSHE teachers, The National Youth Agency, 2003.
Eds. Oldfield, C. and Phillips. D: Volunteer Action: young people taking action in their communities, The National Youth Agency, 2004.
Eds. Oldfield, C, Phillips. D and Harrison. K: Youth Action and Engagement: reaching socially excluded young people: case studies, The National Youth Agency, 2005.
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