Examination of Witnesses (Questions 264-279)
MR SIMON
GOULDEN, DR
MOHAMMED MUKADAM,
MR NICK
MCKEMEY
AND MS
OONA STANNARD
22 MAY 2006
Q264 Chairman: Can I welcome Nick McKemey,
Oona Stannard, Simon Goulden and Dr Mohammad Mukadam to our proceedings
and say again that we always are very grateful when people give
their time to come in front of our Committee. Of course, we know
that we can make you come if you did not want to but it is very
nice when witnesses eagerly attend, so thanks very much for your
attendance. We are something like halfway into our inquiry into
citizenship education and we are getting ourselves into some very
interesting territory. Some of the questions are quite philosophic,
spiritual, whatever, but they are fascinating. Some of the evidence
that your organisations have given us today has been very interesting
and some very challenging. I intend to start these proceedings
by giving each of the witnesses a chance to make a very short
introduction, not to repeat their CV but to say something to the
Committee to get the discussion moving.
Mr McKemey: My own reflection
is that this was a very difficult subject to get a grip on. I
have attempted to do some sort of survey of what is going on in
Church of England schools and alongside that I have looked at
what we have in terms of some kind of emerging policy on citizenship
and so I may refer to the two speeches by the Archbishop of Canterbury
made in the last three years, both of which have some pointers
to and indications of what could be surmised as the Church of
England stance on this, but I say that with some hesitancy.
Q265 Chairman: Why do you say it
with some hesitancy?
Mr McKemey: Because it is very
difficult to get a complete picture. As an education provider
we probably have the most diverse run of schools in the whole
faith provision, partly because we have voluntary foundation schools
and now academies and we also have voluntary aided schools and
those schools very broadly have somewhat different types of character
and they certainly have different types of governance, so there
are differences there. If you then apply the broad range of churchmanship
across Church of England schools and the degree to which schools
adhere to some form of distinctive Christian character you have
a very wide range. Then again, if you add the populations within
the schools, we have schools which are 100% UK white to schools
that are well over 90% of Asian and Muslim origin. If you look
at that it is very diverse; hence I hesitate to come out with
a simple picture of a Church of England school.
Q266 Chairman: There is no simple
picture.
Mr McKemey: There is no simple
picture but a very complex one.
Ms Stannard: I too have been talking
to various heads and inviting schools to comment and advise me
in advance of today. By way of introduction all that I would want
to say is that I have been strongly reminded by those to whom
I have spoken that being a good Catholic involves being a good
citizen and the notion of citizenship as service is something
which is held dear in the schools. When people have discussed
that with me they have also been very keen to remind me, as if
I did not know already, that being a Catholic school does not
mean that it is populated entirely by Catholic pupils. There is
a feeling that the sense of citizenship as service is something
that they are practising throughout the school, whatever the range
of pupils, and that it is built on the Christian values of the
school.
Mr Goulden: We clearly all have
been doing our homework. I too have been contacting Jewish schools
and find that the whole subject of citizenship is one that is
very difficult to decouple from the very life of the school itself.
Clearly, having heard my two colleagues on my right and, I would
guess, my colleague on my left, the idea of a faith community
not being imbued with ideas of citizenship and everything that
brings with it is something I find very difficult to decouple.
Judaism believes that education is the process of becoming a citizen,
becoming articulate in the law, in collective responsibility,
responsibility for the world around us, and so to have citizenship
as a discrete and separate subject is one that has been quite
challenging for the Jewish community and its schools. We have
very much built it into religious education because religious
education and religion imbues our lives and that focuses on citizenship
subjects. It has been an interesting bit of research and clearly
one where there is a lot of work going on but I would be interested
to hear what others have to say.
Q267 Chairman: Are you saying that
the problem is very different if you are in a non-faith school,
that the question of citizenship is quite different if you step
outside the faith school sector, that you need citizenship there
because there is not a religious core, a spiritual core, that
is already part of making people aware of the need for citizenship?
Mr Goulden: I cannot, of course,
speak for the non-faith school community because that is not one
that I am over-familiar with, but I certainly do know in the Jewish
community that our faith drives our view of citizenship and the
demands of the faith and of citizenship do not seem to be at odds
at all, quite the contrary. Exactly what goes on in the rest of
the state sector, because the vast majority of our schools, of
course, are voluntary aided schools, I am afraid I am not really
qualified to answer.
Dr Mukadam: The Association of
Muslim Schools UK has some 125 mostly independent Muslim schools
up and down the country. Citizenship is something which is not
new for many of our schools because from an Islamic point of view
a good citizen is a good Muslim, a universal citizen. Of course,
there are many challenges for us in schools. Some of them have
just started, like lack of resources, lack of training, trying
to get to grips with many other things associated with running
schools, but on the whole every school that I have visited or
spoken to warmly welcomes this debate and is engaged actively
in teaching young people citizenship. Many are engaged in looking
at different methodologies because of the diversity within the
Muslim communities. Some take a traditional role and teach it
as a separate subject, try to Islamicise it; others will take
a different approach and integrate it throughout the curriculum.
There is a variety of approaches but in essence it is a debate
that is welcomed in Muslim schools in order to face challenges
and see how we can continue to improve our teachings to churn
out better educated British citizens.
Q268 Mrs Dorries: All of you have
demonstrated that citizenship is something which is imbued in
the day-to-day life of your schools as part of the faith which
is what drives your schools. The Chairman raised an important
question about whether you think it does not happen outside. Do
you think that you need citizenship as a subject within your schools
and, as an add-on to that, do you think that if you do not other
schools do?
Dr Mukadam: I suppose a properly
run Islamic school would not require a citizenship programme at
all because within its philosophy, its teachings and its holistic
approach is what I would call the effective domain which seeks
to turn young people into good human beings with universal values.
A good Muslim should really be a good universal citizen no matter
which country he lives in. In that respect, if you analyse what
citizenship looks for and you look at the ethos and the effective
domain that exists within Islamic schools you will find they are
in parallel and in some cases they go well above what is required
in the citizenship programme. This addresses not only the cognitive
domain but also the effective domain in making sure that those
values are understood and internalised. Yes, in one sense, if
the citizenship programme did not exist we would have no problem
in churning out good, well-rounded British citizens.
Ms Stannard: It would be disingenuous
to say that when citizenship came on stream under that name I
did not hear complaints from Catholic schools who were saying
to me, "We are doing this anyway. Why do we have to jump
through these hoops?", and there was great concern about
trying to find the time in an overcrowded curriculum. That said,
having moved on and with schools having more experience now of
delivering citizenship in terms of present expectations, there
is a much more positive response. Many schools say, "We enjoy
what it has made us think about and focus upon and many of the
activities and so on that we have planned and got involved in
in the name of citizenship", and they say that whilst still
moaning about curriculum pressures and the pressure of finding
the time. Typically there will be citizenship occurring through
the medium of religious education but also in PSHE and other subjects
and by other strategies as well.
Q269 Mrs Dorries: We have PSHE, we
have English, we have history, we have religious education. Why
then do we need citizenship as well? How come the teachers are
complaining about the additional curriculum pressure? Why can
they not teach what they are teaching as citizenship through those
routes or channels? Why do they have to have it isolated into
a different heading or subject?
Mr McKemey: One of the difficulties
we had was getting a comprehensive picture and maybe that is what
we are going to embark on now. A head teacher rang me up the other
day and made a very forceful statement for delivering citizenship
across the whole curriculum within a school that has a distinctive
Christian character, and he talked about worship right through
to PE, so it was through the whole thing and it was really about
identifying those strands. Most of the head teachers that I have
spoken to and most of the schools that I visit approach it in
that way and that is when it seems to work best. One of the problems
with PSHE was when it got detached and became a thing in itself.
Years ago as an Ofsted inspector I remember inspecting some pretty
dreadful PSHE lessons, and one of the things that we are concerned
about, as with our Catholic colleagues, is that the thing could
be counterproductive if it is delivered in the wrong way. Certainly
I think we would feel that it would not only be embedded in the
Christian dimension of the school but also through the whole curriculum
as a holistic approach.
Q270 Mrs Dorries: Citizenship seems
to be the essence of what you do in your schools anyway as faith
schools. It seems to have taken the essence of what you teach
through every lesson every day and crystallised it into a subject
with "citizenship" above it. Do you think it is the
Government's place to do that, to tell you to take out the best
of what you will teach anyway and to put it into a new subject
and define it?
Mr Goulden: I think it would be
disingenuous of us to suggest how the Government should focus
the National Curriculum for the future, or even the present, but
it does seem, certainly from my point of view, that we have tried
to find a subject heading for something which, certainly for a
faith school, is the warp and the weft of everything we do. I
was listening just now to what Oona said and could not help but
feel that she could have translated that exactly into what our
schools are doing and have been doing, and I assume I speak for
my other colleagues as well. This is not difficult for a faith
school to do. It just means that we have to re-focus and re-compartmentalise
the work we do so that it fits nicely into the citizenship curriculum
and the curriculum headings and outcomes et cetera, but it is
not new territory for us. I think it is new territory for a number
of non-faith schools, or rather state schools. I think we can
get an idea of the dimension of that if you try and see how many
colleges and universities run specific PGCE courses in citizenship.
There are fewer than a dozen in the country and many of those
do that as part of citizenship and history, citizenship and literacy
or citizenship and English. It strikes me that the non-faith schools
system might be needing to catch up with where we as faith schools
have had little difficulty in understanding citizenship for many
decades.
Q271 Mrs Dorries: This might be an
unfair question to ask people who are already familiar with the
concept of citizenship through what you do on a day-to-day basis
but, given that we have so many coasting schools in the UK and
schools where we have—and I cannot remember the statistic;
I have not brought it with me—is it one in six children
still not reaching the right literacy levels by the time they
leave school, do you not think that the Government should be concentrating
on the three Rs, as it were, the basic education, and leaving
citizenship to history and PSHE and religion and not taking curriculum
time to add another subject on?
Ms Stannard: First, could I say
that I think you can deliver citizenship education as something
discrete or across the curriculum or, when done best, as a combination
of both. I take your point about standards and I am sure we all
feel that those are critically important, but citizenship education
done well offers a good medium in which to be developing work
on those standards. Some of the activities in which children and
young people have become involved as a result of citizenship are
quite motivating, they give the pupils work where they are having
to write, having to be numerate, having to undertake pieces of
analysis and so on, which arguably you could say help to develop
those core skills. Another benefit of citizenship education done
well is the building of the self-esteem of the pupils. What some
of them are achieving and experiencing is very rewarding for them.
In a sense I might even be tempted to argue that having created
something with a label called citizenship, even though we believe
we can do it very well without that label, does also mean that
schools are put on their mettle to check what they are doing in
citizenship and it has stimulated innovation. For example, in
our diocese of Brentwood the Bishop has initiated annual pupil
citizenship awards which are given out in a big ceremony within
the cathedral. The pupils are very proud of them, as are the parents.
They are very keenly reported upon and sought. I think there are
all sorts of additional benefits that can come from citizenship
and I do feel very keenly about pressures on the curriculum and
the timetable for teachers but I think there is a balancing act
that can be done.
Mr McKemey: In common with my
colleagues we have schools that are serving communities in which
the children presenting at the reception stage have barely any
social skills at all. If we see citizenship as having an impact
on the development of, if you like, socialisation of children,
the needs for these children are particularly acute. I was in
one of our secondary schools recently which is in fact serving
the population of two previous failed schools and the issues are
very acute. The parental generation is the one that was failed
and their model of schools and their attitude to education is
extremely negative, so the school is in a sense trying to educate
two generations at once and the children are coming in, as I say,
with virtually no social skills. A good example is that their
model of dealing with problems is anger or violence and so on,
so I think that there are some real issues. At that level that
socialisation has to be embedded in what the school does, let
alone what its values are and what it stands for. I think there
are some acute needs for this. Coming back to whether the Government
should have a programme for this, there clearly are needs in those
kinds of circumstances.
Q272 Jeff Ennis: I would like to
follow the line of questioning that Nadine has been pursuing in
response to an earlier reply you gave, Oona. Do you think one
of the reasons why the Government have pushed the citizenship
agenda, if you like, is that they feel it may be in danger of
being part of the implied curriculum in certain schools, and I
am not singling out faith schools when I say this, rather than
the actual curriculum which they obviously want to see happening
across every school, not just the faith schools?
Ms Stannard: Can I just check
that I have understood your question correctly? You are wondering
if my view is that it being overt in the curriculum is to ensure
that it happens and it happens well?
Q273 Jeff Ennis: Yes, because in
any school curriculum you have the implied curriculum, which teachers
are supposed to teach, and then you have the actual curriculum
which they end up teaching. Quite often there is a disparity between
the two and I am just wondering if education for citizenship can
fall into that disparate sort of situation on occasion.
Ms Stannard: I am sure that it
could. Every school is different, every school approaches what
it has to do differently and with different interests and particular
enthusiasms. I think having citizenship as something named and
looked at ensures that those running the school undertake the
review and the evaluation of citizenship, but I would also agree
with you entirely, if I have inferred correctly, that citizenship
is not something that is only taught but is also acted and is
present in very many of the extra-curricular activities that I
see going on, for instance, in older students participating in
justice and peace groups in our schools, running a Fair Trade
shop, Fair Trade cafés, all that sort of thing.
Q274 Jeff Ennis: I have a supplementary
question to an earlier response from Nick McKemey in terms of
the fact that it appears to me that education for citizenship
can be used as a very positive tool in promoting behaviour management
across the whole spectrum of all schools, Nick, and I wonder if
you agree with that philosophy.
Mr McKemey: Yes, I do. That picks
up the comment Oona made a minute or two ago, that if the school
is not simply focused on the hard academic curriculum but also
on developing positive attitudes to learning and raising self-esteem
and that sort of capital which you need in order to develop and
proceed to greater achievement, then yes, I do see that as a coherent
approach.
Q275 Jeff Ennis: I wonder if Simon or
Mohammed have any views about either of the questions I have put
to the other two witnesses?
Mr Goulden: One of the difficulties
I see is that citizenship should be for everybody a way of life.
That is what it should all be. Clearly, in a religious school
or a school of a religious nature, that religious life is a way
of life as well. For the religious school the two are perfectly
matched. I do not know whether the Government decided to put citizenship
in the curriculum because it is not a way of life, sadly, any
more for a percentage—whether the vast percentage or not
I have no idea—of the British population. I do see that
there is this tripartite compact of the school, the community
(for me the faith community) and the home, and you cannot leave
the home out. We know that a triangle is the strongest structure
possible and if you have a strong triangle then almost nothing
can destroy it. My concern is that somewhere in our recent past,
I would imagine, the concept of citizenship for the majority of
people in the community has become far more Putnam's Bowling
Alone syndrome and ideas of citizenship have tended to disappear
with the "me" generation: "I want it all and I
want it now". I think a faith grounding goes some way to
redress that balance. I do not know, I genuinely do not know,
how that plays out in a non-faith environment.
Dr Mukadam: I would like to try
and separate two issues here. One is, I would say, the values
and self-esteem and things associated with those in faith schools
that we find are done effectively through religious education,
collective worship, et cetera. Where I do find citizenship really
useful is when it acts as a conduit for debate and allows young
people to have discussions about human rights, for example, and
the sharia, what sorts of differences there are and how does a
Muslim in a western country look at and discuss those differences
and so forth. There is also democracy. If you give year 7s or
Key Stage 3 kids a chance to play, for example, the Prime Minister
it is a wonderful inspiration for them. I think it is a very useful
subject in which to develop attitudes, skills and other things
associated with democracy so that they understand it and have
an opportunity to discuss their own faith perspectives within
that framework. It would be right to say that the core values
which make a good global citizen in our opinion are formed effectively
within the religious domain of the school's life.
Q276 Jeff Ennis: What degree of flexibility
should schools and other institutions be allowed when it comes
to providing citizenship education for pupils in their care? Are
there things which categorically should be left out and things
which should definitely be included within the citizenship curriculum
of a school?
Ms Stannard: Could I submit a
dissertation to you on that in three years' time please? I really
think it is so profound and important a question that I just could
not do it justice off the cuff like that; forgive me.
Q277 Jeff Ennis: That is very honest
of you. I can tell you are a Catholic. Can you give me one or
two issues that you think definitely ought to be in? What are
the main issues that should be in the citizenship curriculum and
what are those that definitely should not be touched?
Ms Stannard: I certainly would
include, for instance, the importance of democracy, the importance
of valuing each person equally, and for me, of course, I would
put that as the dignity of the human being, seeing Christ in everyone
you encounter and what that demands in terms of how you treat
every individual, and from there what that should mean in terms
of the structures of your life and the way you live your life
and that life of service to others. It is harder to say what should
not be in, I am afraid.
Q278 Jeff Ennis: Exactly!
Mr McKemey: Can I approach that
in a slightly different way? When you look at the national curriculum
remit for citizenship it is relatively comprehensive or potentially
comprehensive. The thing that would concern me is, if you like,
the quality and depth of the provision. An area that we are very
interested in and which Archbishop Rowan reflected on in his speech
in March, Faith in the Future, was in our case the way
a faith school can engage with those of other faiths and no faith
as well as their own faith, and how that relationship can be enriched
and developed. This goes way beyond what he calls passive tolerance.
It is a real engagement. One of the values that we have heard
expressed that a faith school might have is spiritual security
and that encompasses the ability for children to be able to develop
and profess belief or no belief in in the complete security of
not being bullied, put down or undermined by other people. We
think there are some key issues there. I have to say that when
you take the National Curriculum and suggested programmes of work
and all the rest of it they do not really start to make inroads
into that process. I think there are some dangers in a simplistic
approach to tolerance because it fails to understand the range
of different values, approaches and so on that people bring to
their thought, belief, philosophic processes or none. I think
probably the biggest challenge we are facing in our education
is with those who have not got the beginnings of any kind of social
or moral code with which to deal with life, whether that is agnostic
or from a faith. That is the key issue and too many things are
being ring-fenced off into tolerance or finding out what the superficial
features are of this or that. That is why I worry. Rather than
leave something out I think it is more about the quality of what
you do.
Mr Goulden: In the Jewish community
we are a little concerned about the use of the word "tolerance".
Somebody once said that you tolerate toothache but it is respect
for all people that Judaism teaches and that is an area that I
would like the National Curriculum and citizenship to concentrate
on: respect for the other, something which I think the chairman
of the Commission for Racial Equality said a few months ago, I
think when he was giving evidence here but I am not sure; it may
have been in another place. That is very important. There is another
feature. Whilst I would agree that the national curriculum programmes
of work are pretty comprehensive, I do not think I would like
to take anything out—perhaps that needs another PhD as well,
three years of research—but I think the important thing
as far as we are concerned is the close connection between giving
and belonging. The Chief Rabbi made, I thought, a very good analogy:
in a house in which you take refuge you are just a guest but in
a house which you help to build you can say, "It is my home".
I think if we as faith communities can help to build the house
that is Britain we can truly say, as we certainly do, that we
belong.
Dr Mukadam: I would agree with
what my colleagues have said. It is very difficult to see what
should or needs to be taken out. It is a wonderful thing that
those who are involved in it have put through. One thing I would
like to say is that flexibility in terms of delivering the citizenship
programme needs to be maintained because there are different approaches.
Those who have a faith perspective have a different approach and
sometimes it is not understood by those who do not have a faith,
not realising that it has worked for people of faith for many
years and it is more effective to teach this because of the different
backgrounds and so forth. I think on the whole it should be maintained
but equally important is flexibility in delivering that so that
it is delivered through different philosophies, different understandings,
rather than having this one-size-fits-all approach which is dominated,
I think, by the comprehensive schools and a faith-free approach.
I would be quite worried about anything that said it had to be
delivered in a particular way.
Q279 Chairman: Is there not a touch
of complacency in some of the things that the four of you are
saying in the sense, "Everything is all right in our bailiwick
but what is happening in the non-faith sector is probably where
the problem lies"? Rather unpleasant characters that are
not very good citizens emerge from your schools, from Catholic
schools, from Anglican schools and from Muslim schools, do they
not? It is not the fact that faith schools do the job of citizenship
brilliantly well. We are all human beings, are we not?
Mr Goulden: We are indeed, Chairman,
and we all have the ability to rise higher and do better. What
I am saying is that the underpinning of citizenship education
through a faith lens—and I am mixing my metaphors so you
must forgive me—I personally find easy to do because that
is something which we do as part of our faith, culture, religion,
philosophy, ethos. I am not saying that everybody is perfect.
That is, of course, what we pray for every day. We are not there
yet but I am saying that we are trying very hard and we do not
have a difficulty with teaching citizenship because it is meat
and drink to us.
|
