Think-tank calls for ‘military academies’

According to think-tank ResPublica – founded by Philip Blond, a driving force behind David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ agenda – a network of schools run by the military should be introduced in Britain’s most deprived areas, in order to prevent youngsters ‘turning into a new generation of rioters’. These military academies would, says ResPublica, draw upon the ‘unique technical and vocational expertise’ of the Armed Forces to address educational failure and poor discipline in problem neighbourhoods.

In a report published in January, and reported in the Telegraph, the independent organisation calls on the coalition government to back a pilot scheme that will see ten schools set up in ‘neet blackspots’ (areas where high levels of youngsters are not in education, employment or training) prior to roll-out to all local education authorities. ‘Military academies would,’ the report says, ‘open up new opportunities for those lacking hope and aspiration; they would change the cultural and moral outlook of those currently engulfed by hopelessness and cynicism.’

The government had already announced, in February 2011, its plans to draft ex-Service personnel into schools to crack down on bad behaviour in the classroom, and instructors recruited from the Armed Forces are to be brought in to work with children at risk of being expelled from mainstream education. Approximately £1.5 million will be awarded to SkillForce – a charity that employs former military personnel – to enable it to expand into tough schools in deprived areas, in a move inspired by similar schemes in the United States where around 15,000 former soldiers have been drafted in to inner-city schools to boost results and behaviour. Speaking about the SkillForce project last year, education secretary Michael Gove said that ‘there is a huge opportunity for those people who have served their country in uniform to serve their country in our schools’.

Mr Blond highlights that ‘both Michael Gove and Nick Clegg have highlighted the value of military training – Mr Gove in calling for boot camps for expelled children and Nick Clegg’s summer camps – but the government must be much bolder. Why should the benefits of military discipline and training be limited to a handful of children excluded from mainstream schools, or just two weeks a year? If the government is serious about harnessing the expertise and ethos of the Armed Forces, then it must be far more radical.’