Teach pupils about the Forces, says review
CHILDREN should be taught in schools about the importance of the Armed Forces as part of the national curriculum so that it cannot be ignored by Left-wing teachers, an official review has said.
Commissioned by Theresa May, it found that many young people leaving school had “little, if any” exposure to the Armed Forces and did not even consider it as a potential career option.
That is leading to a recruitment crisis, along with other factors including record employment and more schoolleavers going to university.
Mark Francois, a Tory MP and former defence minister who authored the review, told The Daily Telegraph: “You have to make it a formal part of the curriculum to ensure it will be taught. There is a risk you could encounter resistance from some Leftwing teachers to the idea.
“Research shows that young people today don’t necessarily have much familiarity with the Armed Forces unless they served in a cadet unit or someone from their family served in uniform. You have large numbers of people leaving education with no real understanding of the Armed Forces and why it’s important to them.”
Mr Francois suggested that children could be taught about the role of the forces as part of lessons on citizenship.
He also calls for more cadet units in schools to give children from all backgrounds “a greater opportunity to experience the military ethos and to benefit from it”. The report, which is published today, warns that the Army is missing its annual recruitment target by as much as 30 per cent. It says that as more personnel leave the Forces to pursue opportunities in the private sector, recruiters are “running to try to stand still” as they attempt to fill gaps in ranks. The Army, it says, is being “hollowed out”, putting operations at risk.
The report says: “This continuing process of ‘hollowing out’ in the ranks, while costing the Armed Forces valuable experience, also threatens to compound the problem by increasing the pressure on those personnel who remain. While some elements of the Armed Forces maintain a high tempo of operations, this problem is likely to become increasingly difficult to sustain in the medium to long term.”
The report says that more must be done to attract women and those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. It says that the forces must give “maximum publicity” to the fact women are now able to serve in close combat front-line roles alongside men.
The report also highlights the fact that 14,269 people a year applying to join are turned down on medical grounds, often for “relatively minor ailments” such as asthma or eczema.