Education for Citizenship

Professor Antony Flew, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in the University of Reading, criticises the report of the 'Advisory Group on Citizenship' on which the government is basing its curriculum for citizenship education. According to Professor Flew, the Advisory Group provides no reason to believe that we have a teaching force '..able and willing to inspire and with impartial competence to chair the class discussions which everyone agrees to be necessary for education in democracy and citizenship.' Flew points also to an extraordinary omission from the Advisory Group's report: it has failed '..even to notice the fundamental questions about British democracy and British citizenship which arise from British involvement in the EU project'. In the words of Professor James Tooley's Foreword, Antony Flew has made an '..important contribution to the public debate about the enormity of the curriculum changes which are coming into effect in September 2000'.