The British government has brought in new guidelines about what can be taught in schools:
Plan your relationships, sex and health curriculum - GOV.UK
It depends on your politics if you think these are a good thing or not.
On the left:
The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.
Schools in England told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups | Education | The Guardian
Legal threat over anti-capitalist guidance for schools in England | Schools | The Guardian
"It's laughable to put talking about alternatives to capitalism on par with racism."On the right:
No, the government has not banned anti-capitalism from schools: The outrage over the government’s new guidelines shows how politicised education has become.
No, the government has not banned anti-capitalism from schools - spiked
ANTI-CAPITALISM material has been banned from being taught in English schools, but what is anti-capitalism and what does it mean?A row over extreme organisations supplying teaching material for pupils highlights the murderous folly of socialism: It’s eighty years since Stalin attempted to starve my father to death in Siberia. Perhaps that’s why I think as I do about the latest controversy over capitalism.Enemies of capitalism have no place in school | Comment | The Times
Somewhere in the middle:
Anticapitalism wasn’t banned in English classrooms during the cold war – why is it now? Materials produced by groups with “extreme political stances” have been barred from English classrooms by the UK government under new guidance for the relationships, sex, and health curriculum. Most of these extreme principles – racism, antisemitism and authoritarianism – are uncontroversial. But the list also includes opposition to capitalism: the “desire to overthrow democracy, capitalism, or the end to free and fair elections”.And from foreign propaganda media!
Here's something a bit more interesting:
A story picked up by the UK media at the end of September passed almost unnoticed. As The Guardian reported, “The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organizations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism. Department for Education guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorized anti-capitalism as an ‘extreme political stance’ and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, anti-Semitism and endorsement of illegal activity.”As far as I know, this was the first time such an explicit order had been given; nothing like this happened even in the darkest periods of the Cold War. One should also note the words used: “a desire to end capitalism.” Not an intention, a plan, a program, but simply a desire – a term which can be applied to almost any statement (“True, you didn’t say it, but it’s what you desire…").
Plus, of course, there was the (now usual) addition of “anti-Semitism,” as if a desire to end capitalism is in itself anti-Semitic. Are the authors aware that their prohibition is in itself anti-Semitic: it implies that Jews are in their essence capitalist?
Why this sudden panic reaction to communism? Is it fear that the pandemic, global warming and other social crises may provide an opportunity for China to assert itself as the only remaining superpower? No, China is not today’s Soviet Union; the best way to prevent communism is to follow China.
And:
Schools have been hurled into the centre of a “culture war” by the publication of unexpected guidance thought to have originated in Downing Street that targets divisive educational issues.Last year, The Times reported that Downing Street had been polling on “culture war” issues such as trans rights – which feature in the guidance – to see if they could be “weaponised” in an election.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the guidance bore “all the hallmarks of having been thrown in by Number 10 in the expectation that there will be a massive row”. But she added: “The more we engage with them in culture wars, the more they get off and escape the litany of incompetence, which is where we need to focus.”
How schools became the battleground of Cummings's culture war
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