Left-wing zealots have always seen schools as a key battleground. Revolutionary Communists are the obvious example – in Hungary in 1919 they even invented sex education to demoralise Christian children, along with all the other Bolshevik rubbish they ordered teachers to force on their pupils.
But democratic Leftists in free countries have also sought to use schools to push their agenda. It is 60 years and more since Labour’s supposed moderate heavyweight Anthony Crosland admitted that ‘reforming’ schools would be a more effective route to socialism than state ownership of the economy.
Tellingly, Crosland set out his ideas in a book called The Conservative Enemy. Note the giveaway, intolerant use of the word ‘enemy’ rather than ‘opponent’. Above all, he wanted them to promote equality above quality.
But the new schools have also tended to teach their pupils what to think. And they have attracted teachers who also want to do this, changing the profession profoundly in our time.
Amazingly, 50 years ago, many, possibly most, advertisements for teaching posts were still placed in conservative newspapers. Now this would be unbelievable.
Millions have emerged from the comprehensive school system with an excellent grounding in Left-wing groupthink, even if they are not very good at mathematics, English or history.
Recently we learned that some apprentices are leaving school unable even to tell the time and with the numeracy skills of 11-year-olds. It is one of the Left’s greatest weaknesses and disadvantages that it seeks to use schools in this way.
If you truly want to improve the lot of the children of the poor, then ensure that they are well-educated in those things which will help them to prosper in adult life.
National Education Union members pictured during a strike in 2023 as a march made its way to a rally in Trafalgar Square
But far too many radicals are more interested in influencing minds than they are in enriching individual future lives.
Anyone who doubts this needs only to look at the agenda for this week’s conference of the National Education Union (NEU), the biggest teaching union in England and Wales.
There are several highly contentious motions. One demands ‘the trade union movement must throw its full weight behind stopping a Reform UK government’.
Reform UK is portrayed as a ‘far-Right’ grouping. They will also be asked to approve a plan to ‘collate and disseminate anti-racist teaching materials.’ Disseminate them to whom, where and how?
Such resolutions would doubtless be well-fitted to the conferences of a Left-wing party. But is this level and intensity of one-sided political commitment fitting for a union which embraces nearly half a million teachers? Obviously not.
Teachers are as free as the rest of us to approve or disapprove of Nigel Farage. When the time comes, they will be able to vote for Reform UK’s opponents. But can we be sure, given this conference agenda, that they will leave it at that?
How would those involved feel if the NEU switched sides and promoted the ideas of Mr Farage in this way? They would hate and oppose it.
There is no place for propaganda in our schools, and so there really ought to be no place for it in the NEU.
