ResPublica welcomes the announcement today from the Labour Party
adopting Military Academies which was inspired by the ResPublica Green
Paper,
Military Academies: Tackling disadvantage, improving ethos and
changing outcome.
Stephen Twigg MP, Labour’s Shadow Education
Secretary and Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary,
announced that Labour would launch ‘Service Schools’ most of which would
take the form of Military academies. These specialist schools would
employ ex-Forces as qualified teachers, have veteran mentors, and offer
on-site cadet force and extended provision of adventurous outdoor
training.
These policies reflect ResPublica’s recommendations to
harness the ‘unique technical and vocational expertise’ existing in the
armed forces and to use them to create a new generation of schools run
by the military that will address lack of aspiration, poor discipline
and educational failure in Britain’s most deprived neighbourhoods.
Written
by Phillip Blond, ResPublica Director and Patricia Kaszynska, Senior
Researcher, the paper was published in the wake of last year’s riots and
launched as part of the institutional response which we believe is
needed to tackle the full extent of despair and educational failure in
Britain’s poorest communities.
Phillip Blond, ResPublica Director said:
“We
are delighted that ResPublica’s recommendations have been adopted by
the Labour party. The announcement this morning is the most recent in a
series of endorsements of our ideas for military academies as part of
the new ethos driven institutions that we need to restore hope and
opportunity for our most deprived communities.”
“My hope is that a
network of military academies will be the Grammar Schools of the 21st
century – non-selective ethos driven centres of academic and vocational
excellence there for every child in the land.
Dr Patricia Kaszynska, ResPublica Senior Researcher said:
“Past
attempts at fighting destitution and disadvantage failed because they
were designed to improve only individual life chances rather than to
transform the outcome for deprived communities as a whole. Military
Academies tackle the problems of intergenerational deprivation and
institutional disadvantage at the community level, they carry the
promise of radically transforming the outcomes for the many not few.
Stephen Twigg MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary said:
“The
Armed Forces can make an important contribution to the nation not just
on the battlefield but by embedding the standards and values they embody
within our social fabric. One way this can be achieved is through
educational provision.
Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary said:
“Veterans
and serving reservists have a unique insight into service life which
can be an inspiration to young people. We want to use their talent and
expertise to help others but also provide them with career opportunities
once they have left the Forces or in between serving in the reserves.”
The
announcement will be made at the ResPublica event ‘
Military Academies:
Views from the Labour party’, held on Wednesday 11th July 2012 at 9am in
Committee Room 9, House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 0PW, where
Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Rt Hon
Jim Murphy MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence will join a
discussion panel with the publications’s authors Phillip Blond and
Patricia Kaszynska.
Media enquiries to: press@respublica.org.uk.