Should all schools be required to teach national civics and politics as a core subject for all pupils?
Citizenship has been compulsory in maintained secondary schools since 2002, covering democracy, government, law, rights and political participation. In November 2025 the Labour government made it statutory in primary schools from 2028, with strengthened content on media literacy, financial literacy, climate education and democracy. Academies will also follow the revised national curriculum, though implementation challenges remain around timetable space and teacher training.
7 Opinions
I'm saying yes, because politics is part of our daily life, knowing what goes on behind the scenes, and how each political party thinks, is important. It could also become a future career. I see a flaw in this, being the political preferences of those teaching. Being a teacher means you can, unknowingly even, pass your political and other preferences on to your pupils. Although it could make a good discussion group for older pupils.
It must be fair and unbiased though. Fed up with teachers telling kids how to be a they / them or a cat or whatever takes their fancy that day.
The risk is political bias and indoctrination in teaching, so great care is needed
Students should be learning ethics and philosophy, with open, structured debates and no exams, not learning national civics and politics. Civics and political education often risk devolving into partisan cheerleading, institutional memorisation, or state-sanctioned thought. Never teach anything about the political system of one’s own country; treat political institutions as contingent human arrangements to be examined, not as sacred objects to be internalised.
This is already abused by activist leftists! What we need is a curriculum that highlights the endless good that Britain has done for the world instead of pushing anti British hateful rhetoric about slavery robbing the 3rd world of any agency for their continued failures a century later!
No, mandatory state curriculum is a joke. Schools should be free to choose their own, market then wouldndecide. At the moment kids leaving the education do not remember 3/4 of what was teached, including reading and writing. Additional subjects will end the same.
I mean, is teaching the next generation how the country is governed and how politics works ever going to be a bad thing?? Quite simply, we should be teaching kids the rules of the "road" before handing them the "keys" to vote.