Scottish Schools Have Become Places of Indoctrination

Stuart Waiton has written a troubling piece in the Spectator about woke indoctrination in Scottish schools. Here’s an excerpt:

Nicola Sturgeon may be on her way out – but after 16 years of SNP rule, Scottish schools are still places of indoctrination. This may sound like a hyperbolic thing to say, but that’s the only conclusion you can draw when you look at what Scottish educators and the Scottish Government are saying themselves.

Take the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Headship, which sets out the professional framework for what a headteacher, teachers and schools should be all about.

You would expect such a document to be all about imparting knowledge and aspiring to teach every child as much as possible. Instead, it is a horrifying mix of therapeutic new-speak that stresses the need for teachers and headteachers to focus on the matter of social justice.

In the 16-page Standard for Headship report ‘social justice’ is mentioned seven times. We are informed, for example, that the very culture of Scotland is “based on social justice”, that we now have “professional values of social justice”, and that social justice is about a commitment to “sustainable policies and practices in relation to protected characteristics…. and intersectionality”.

The terms sustainable or sustainability appear 23 times in the document. This includes what some would see as a Malthusian demand for “respect for our natural world and its limited resources” as well as a call for “learning for sustainability”, whatever that means.

According to Waiton, pernicious and discredited ideas like Critical Race Theory are imposed upon teachers.

As one educational expert told me, if student teachers, “don’t subscribe to the particular interpretation of ‘social justice’ that is currently in vogue, then they won’t achieve registration for the General Teaching Council.”

Elsewhere the Scottish Government and Education Scotland have worked to ensure that teachers are “Embedding race equality in school”. This is not simply about treating people equally, quite the reverse in fact. Rather it is about the promotion of Critical Race Theory and the divisive and self-loathing idea of ‘white privilege’, which is endorsed by Education Scotland.

Furthermore, the dangerous and radical trans ideology that was the undoing of Sturgeon is still rampant in the school system.

Perhaps worst of all is the Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools guidance document, a policy that would fit comfortably on the shelves of the most extreme trans activist.

Schools, for example, have to ensure that children, “demonstrate an understanding of diversity in sexuality and gender identity”. From age 12 children can self-identify and receive support and validation from schools. The school will develop a “support plan for the transgender young person”, thus creating a “safe space for transgender young people to be themselves and have their identities respected”.

If parents don’t support this development it is implied that they are a wellbeing concern. But then, many parents will not even know that this gender fluid ideology is being adopted or that their child is being transitioned with the help of the school as, “it is best to not share information with parents or carers without considering and respecting the young person’s views”.

Worth reading in full.