{"id":644318,"date":"2025-12-20T13:49:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/644318\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:49:21","slug":"edinburgh-council-approves-universal-political-education-in-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/644318\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh council approves universal political education in schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE City of Edinburgh Council<\/a> has voted to provide \u201cuniversal political education\u201d<\/a> to school children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This means that the council is set to examine ways that schools in Edinburgh can make materials on voting systems and registering to vote<\/a> more available in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They will also consider ways to raise awareness of elections and provide instruction on registering to vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An SNP<\/a> Edinburgh Councillor, Martha Mattos Coelho, was prompted to table this motion because of the obstacles that school pupils\u00a0reportedly face\u00a0in voting and engaging in politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Councillor<\/a>Councillor Mattas Coelho cited Alastair Campbell\u2019s book \u201cBut What Can I Do?\u201d in the outline of her motion (C) City of Edinburgh Council<\/p>\n

Her original motion, which would have seen council officers prepare a report into how political materials could be made available to all pupils, was, however,\u00a0somewhat watered\u00a0down by a Labour amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young Scottish voters face several barriers to voting, according to Councillor Martha Mattos Coelho, who\u00a0represents\u00a0the\u00a0Liberton\/Gilmerton\u00a0ward, and can often be left feeling disenfranchised and confused by voting systems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mattos Coelho wants the council to recognise these barriers and allow young people to have universal access to materials about electoral systems, political beliefs and registering to vote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She acknowledged that young people\u00a0can\u00a0receive modern studies tutoring, which will teach them about Scottish and UK politics, but she wanted to see these materials made available for all young voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was also looking to get posters\u00a0containing\u00a0QR codes and information on registering to vote distributed among schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mattos Coelho referred to\u00a0the book\u00a0But What Can I Do?\u00a0by\u00a0Alastair Campbell in her synopsis of the motion, saying: \u201cThe author says that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0[disenfranchisement\u00a0of young voters] because when\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0approached by a young\u00a0person\u00a0he says that\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0clear that while they have not yet reached the hopeless stage, they are headed there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why it\u2019s so important for this motion to be passed \u2013 because young people are not voting and we need them to be voting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

An amendment by the administration replaced the planned report to the Education, Children, and Families Committee with a business bulletin, removed some specific measures, and gave more licence to schools and teachers to decide for themselves how to provide political education.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An amendment by the Conservatives looked to\u00a0essentially shelf\u00a0the idea, with no report of business bulletin\u00a0submitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They did, however, agree that it was important to encourage voting age school pupils to vote in elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Labour\u00a0councillor James Dalgleish, proposing\u00a0Labour\u2019s amendment in response to the motion, said: \u201cIt always feels bad amending someone else\u2019s motion when you agree with the thrust of it in getting more young people aware of politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversal political education sounds good, and we want to support that as much as we can, but if\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0going to bring forward a report that says modern studies materials should be made available to all student [sic].\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who meets with teachers and trade unions on a weekly basis,\u00a0i\u00a0think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0going to be\u00a0very, very difficult\u00a0and put a huge\u00a0amount\u00a0of pressure on\u00a0teachers and school staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was to give [teachers] more of an opportunity to reach pupils within their limits and within their pressures to be able to further the democratic process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Labour\u00a0councillor Margaret Arma Graham, seconding the motion, added: \u201cIt\u2019s important that we don\u2019t continually put pressure on our education system to educate young people on everything, when a lot of this education can be done at home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councillor Christopher\u00a0Cowdy, of\u00a0the Conservatives, pointed out that a 2021 study by Cambridge University found \u201cno support\u201d for the idea that high school courses focusing on politics and civic skills development increase turnout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mattos Coelho initially tried to integrate parts of the labour amendment, turning her proposed report into a business bulletin, but the Labour group decided to pursue their motion independently anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The original motion and the Conservatives\u2019 amendment were shot down, while the Labour group amendment passed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The council will now investigate ways that they can encourage teachers to provide political materials and information on registering to vote.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE City of Edinburgh Council has voted to provide \u201cuniversal political education\u201d to school children.\u00a0 This means that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,37802,194751,157222,4884,197859,197860,197861,712,10004,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-644318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-council","11":"tag-edinburgh-education","12":"tag-edinburgh-schools","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-mattos-coelho","15":"tag-modern-studies","16":"tag-poltical-education","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-snp","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115752218383453083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}