Here, from a leftwing writer, is a sensible and honest appraisal of what is happening to British education:
“…Views that fall outside the accepted liberal-left spectrum get short shrift in my staffroom. I have watched teachers react incredulously – almost to the point of tears – when colleagues have tried floating a reasonable case for Brexit. This would be harmless enough if it did not put in doubt their ability empathise with views opposed to their own…”
“…In theory students are introduced to a range of ideologies through studying government and politics. But I have only heard Labour politicians being criticised by fellow teachers for being too rightwing. We have had assemblies celebrating feminists and the campaign for a living wage, which are excellent and informative, but with no attention given to right-of-centre subjects (none that weren’t heavily critical, anyway).
The latter were balanced presentations insofar as they covered arguments on both sides, although dissenting views were always delivered under an arched eyebrow. Perhaps this is unavoidable. After all, I do not think it is unreasonable for teachers to share their political views, provided they make caveats about these being personal views. In its guidance to schools, Ted Huddleston of the Citizenship Foundation warned that “it does young people no favours to shield them from views they are likely to encounter in society”…”
"…It often seems like few other authority figures in my students’ lives are preparing them for life outside their Labour bubble, where, for example, austerity is not automatically a term of abuse, and welfare not always accepted as a good thing. The net effect is to restrict their intellectual curiosity about, and ability to empathise with, others of different political persuasions.
I see evidence for this every week when I hear otherwise bright and articulate students justify their political opinions with vague, lazy arguments. As John Stuart Mill foresaw, since they have never learned to defend value judgments that seem entirely natural to them, they will struggle to respond to their opponents beyond the school gates.
This is about more than education. With our politics increasingly polarised, it saddens me to see my students being initiated – deliberately or not – into an essentially Manichaean view of politics, with a checklist of “goodies” (leftists, trade unions, Corbyn) and “baddies” (Tories, Brexiteers, anyone who uses the phrase British values without irony)…"
Wow!
I feel lucky. At the schools I attended in the 80s and early 90s there were centre-right as well as centre-left teachers. And in my day at university there were still SOME rightwing tutors (albeit outnumbered by about 4:1 by rabidly anti-American leftists, as I recall.)
But today the Left seems to have gotten a virtual chokehold on vast swathes of British education!
In one way, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Any reasonably intelligent student is going to form his or her own opinions and not be brainwashed by teachers or professors. Being penalised in assessments for having the “wrong” views also needn’t be a problem, because any reasonably astute and streetwise person will always adapt to his or her surroundings. I remember (not without genuine affection) one tutor who had some pretty nutty far-left politics. Well, y’know I didn’t give him any reason to think I disagreed with him 
Fine, but how about pupils and students who aren’t reasonably intelligent?
There is a risk that schools, at least, are now turning out whole generations of bone-headed liberal bigots who believe that anyone who disagrees with the doctrines that they have uncritically swallowed is somehow morally bad! One really did see this in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum - with the utter drivel and garbage about Brexit voters being “racist”, “hating foreigners”, etc.
There is, of course, a rich irony inasmuch that the EU is very far indeed from being any friend of the authentic political left. If anything, these “leftwing” folks have been conditioned into accepting a form of bureaucratic neoliberal government for the primary benefit of big multinational banks and companies, IMO.
I don’t know what the answer is. But it just can’t be good for society if young people are being heavily steered towards only one set of political views. I would certainly say the same thing if it were the right that were behaving this way.
