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“War propaganda” in U.K. schools

LONDON: Britain’s Ministry of Defence has been accused of spreading “war propaganda” among schoolchildren by presenting a sanitised version of the Iraq invasion in material supplied to schools.

The National Union of Teachers, the country’s biggest teachers’ body, has protested arguing that the material breaches the Education Act by providing a one-sided view of the invasion. The Act lays down that all political issues must be discussed in a balanced way.

The NUT general secretary Steve Sinnott has written to the Secretary of State for Schools, Ed Balls, accusing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of “rewriting” history by presenting a one-sided view of the invasion.

He recalled that recently, the High Court ruled that Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film on climate change “An Inconvenient Truth” must not be shown in schools without teachers putting forward the counter view on the issue.

“I have to say that were the MoD pack to be distributed and followed without the legally required ‘balanced presentation of opposing views’, there would, in my view, be very serious risk of finding of non-compliance with Section 406 of the 1996 Education Act,” he wrote.

Mr. Ed Balls said he had asked his officials to take up the matter with the MoD.

The MoD said the material was drawn up after “widely” consulting teachers and students, and claimed that the feedback from schools had been “extremely encouraging”. It also pointed out that the use of the material was completely voluntary.

Teachers have specifically objected to lessons that tend to glorify the invasion. They point out that there is no mention of civilian casualties or the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

“It is propaganda; it does not present a balanced position. When you are dealing with something as controversial as Iraq and different events which led up to the invasion, teachers are under an enormous duty to present material which is balanced,” Mr. Sinnott said.

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