Call To Staff British Schools With Soldiers

Plans to bring in schools staffed with teachers who have served in the military are being put forward as a way of disciplining Britain's unruly youth.

In response to the recent riots in England and to the growing numbers of young people getting involved in gangs, the Centre for Policy Studies has published a report examining the feasibility of a free school run by former military personnel.

Co-author Tom Burkard outlined the principles of the first school he hopes to open in Greater Manchester.

They include zero tolerance, rigorous literacy programmes - it is expected all students will be able to read and write in one year - encouragement of competitiveness and the involvement of parents and the wider community.

Mr Burkard, from the University of Buckingham, said: "Military personnel have a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong and this is lacking, I think, in our schools where behavioural management assumes that children have the right to their own behaviour and it is up to the teacher to manage that behaviour.

"That is essentially licence for the child to do whatever he or she wants."

But those who work in education have worries about former military personnel doing a job that many have had to train for years to do.

President of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Alice Robinson said: "I have grave concerns largely because of a lack of understanding about how students learn, whether they are auditory, kinesthetic or visual.

"What is the best approach for children and how can you engage children in their preferred learning styles?

"That is one aspect, the other is a lack of detailed subject knowledge.

"Without meaning to be flippant, an ex-military personnel's geography may be extremely good but what about the rest of the curriculum?"

The free school in the Greater Manchester area is expected to open in two years' time and if it is successful, Mr Burkard wants the model rolled out across the country.

Minister of state for the armed forces Nick Harvey said: "It is an interesting idea, but clearly there will be a limit to the amount of capacity that could be generated for schools of this sort.

"The problems we would assume from the scenes of rioting a few weeks ago are quite widespread, so we would need to be realistic about the extent to which we thought this sort of approach could tackle the problem.

"But it certainly might be possible that it could contribute towards it."