Schools and teachers have a moral responsibility to seek to protect our children from grooming, whether for sexual exploitation or by violent extremist groups. We need the best possible systems and support in our schools to help safeguard students.
But most of that grooming happens in private – in bedrooms on private social media accounts – so the question of how we best “vaccinate” children against it is vitally important.
The Prevent strategy was published by the government in 2011 as part of its overall counter-terrorism strategy. In 2015 it was given legal status in schools and colleges in England and Wales, which are now obliged by statute “to have due regard” to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.
However, concerns have been raised by many organisations and individuals about some of the consequences of the Prevent strategy in our schools and colleges, including the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation David Anderson QC, and members of Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee, including its chair Keith Vaz MP and Naz Shah MP.
A strategy to oppose and confront the radicalisation of young people who become prey to nefarious influences will fail to meet that aim if young people feel prevented from expressing views in class.
The best vaccination that our young people can have is if our teachers can facilitate vibrant discussion in a democratic and anti-racist, anti-Islamophobic context.
But there is a danger that the government’s Prevent strategy will close down space for debate which affords young people the opportunity to hear arguments against extremist views from any quarter.
One teacher reported that her class of mainly Muslim girls avoided discussing the Charlie Hebdo outrage in Paris as they had been warned by their mothers to not say anything for fear of being “reported”.
These girls would not have wanted to support the terrorists, but would have had a variety of views – for example about the publication of images of the prophet Muhammad.
The fear these girls’ mothers expressed will have been heightened by the fact that in the present climate Muslim children and young people can face Islamophobia on a regular basis. This makes it much harder to get children to express their viewpoints and much harder to vaccinate children from violent extremism.
This is a crucial issue for teachers. That’s why teachers need support to carry on promoting democratic values in our classrooms and advancing the values that generate respect for each other’s human rights.
This is a crucial issue for teachers and that’s why teachers need support to carry on defending democratic values and tolerance in our classrooms. That tolerance must extend to respect for our Muslim students, the vast majority of whom have no time for the ISIS death cult.
Responding to new and existing forms of extremism requires a coherent education system where schools and colleges can ask for support and share strategies for teaching about democratic values and about human rights.
It is only through discussion and rational debate with the profession that we will get this right in our schools.
- Kevin Courtney is deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. Visit www.teachers.org.uk