Our summer seminar and AGM

• More civil penalties
• New criminal offences
• New English language requirements for public sector workers

• Extends stop and search like measures which have been proven to disproportionately and adversely impact on members of BAME communities
• Introduces new seizure powers
• Is likely to make landlords wary of letting accommodation to BAME tenants
• May discourage employers from employing BAME workers
• Enables rogue employers and landlords to exploit vulnerable individuals
• Makes it more difficult for individuals to appeal and secure justice.

• is there actually any need for this legislation - don't job descriptions and person specifications of public facing roles contain requirements for good communication skills already?
• there is no definition of 'fluency' or of 'public facing'
• each public body will have to define relevant standards of fluency - this is likely to lead to different standards for different parts of the country as well as for different jobs

• people who are being exploited may be criminalised
• particular sectors seem to be being targeted, e.g. restaurants, minicabs

Education not surveillance
By Bill Bolloten

This is a shortened version of a speech given by Bill at the joint Institute of Race Relations (IRR) and Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) seminar ‘Securitisation, Schools and Preventing Extremism’ in October 2015.

I am a teacher and independent education consultant. I work with schools, school governors and children’s services on equality and diversity, and also on SMSC: the requirement for schools to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, as part of which schools are now required to promote so-called ‘fundamental British values’.

I am active in #EducationNotSurveillance, a network of parents, teachers, educationalists, activists and academics, who argue that the new statutory Prevent duty is misguided, counter-productive and damaging to both pupils and schools. We have come together to challenge Prevent and how it is being implemented in schools and early education settings.

We also want to give out a clear and positive message that we believe in education that is inspirational, that develops pupils’ critical thinking, celebrates cultural diversity, promotes equality and fosters the trust and goodwill needed to explore sensitive and difficult issues.

New duties, flawed concepts 
On 1 July 2015, the new legal duty was placed on schools and early years and childcare providers to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. The revised statutory guidance stipulates that ‘being drawn into terrorism includes not just violent extremism but also non-violent extremism, which can create an atmosphere conducive to terrorism and can popularise views which terrorists then exploit.’ Schools and early years providers are now assessed by Ofsted to check that they are implementing Prevent.  Prevent’s most important dimension is Channel, a referral, multi-agency assessment and intervention process meant to protect people at risk of ‘radicalisation’. Channel is driven by multi-agency panels in which the police play a leading role.

Some of the key concerns about the Prevent duty are:

• The model that underpins the government’s concept of ‘radicalisation’, and which is central to Prevent, is informed by notion of ‘psychological vulnerability’; that individuals must have certain vulnerabilities that make them more likely to engage in terrorism.
• The Prevent strategy and the new duty are fixated on ‘extremist ideology’; the view that people are drawn into terrorism almost exclusively through ideology. Yet research suggests that social, economic and political factors, as well as social exclusion, play a more central role in driving political violence than ideology.
• Training for teachers, often delivered by police officers, urges teachers to report signs of radicalisation among their pupils, despite there being simply no empirical evidence at all to support the idea that terrorism can be correlated with factors to do with family, identity and emotional wellbeing.
• Beneath the jargon on ‘risks’, ‘vulnerabilities’, ‘engagement factors’ and ‘psychological hooks’, is an invitation to racial and religious profiling in which normal teenage behaviours, or a young person’s beliefs, can be seen as indicators of being on the pathway to violent extremism. In fact, studies show that there is no direct link at all between religious observance, radical ideas, emotional wellbeing and violent acts. 
• By requiring schools and teachers to put pupils under surveillance, casting particular suspicion on Muslim pupils, and profiling them for behaviours that have no real connection to criminal behaviour, Prevent confuses the different professional roles of teachers and the police, and draws educational practitioners into becoming the eyes and ears of the counter-terrorism system.
• A senior British police officer recently offered specific advice: if a teenager stops shopping at Marks and Spencer, it could be because they had been radicalised. He also suggested watching for subtle unexplained changes such as sudden negative attitudes towards alcohol and western clothing
• A huge concern is the tremendous risk of abuse and mistake in any approach that tries to predict future criminal activity, including terrorism. 
• There are now several private companies selling anti-radicalisation software to schools. If school pupils search for words such as ‘caliphate’ or ‘jihad’ on classroom computers they risk being flagged as potential supporters of terrorism. A really sinister feature of the software being marketed by the company called Impero, is a ‘confide button’ allowing pupils to report on classmates anonymously.

Destroying trust, fostering discrimination
Expecting teachers and childcare professionals to identify potential extremists undermines trust and positive relationships. We argue that mutual respect and trust between teachers and pupils is essential for learning environments where everyone feels safe and valued. The constant monitoring of Muslim students will destroy trust and encourage discrimination against them. How much confidence can Muslim communities have in Prevent in schools when many serious abuses are being reported already?

We are seeing the duty being implemented naïvely in some schools, but also in crude, damaging and discriminatory ways in others. These are often schools where teachers have attended the ‘official’ Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP) training.

Here are some examples:

• A fifteen-year-old was questioned by police at his family home about his views on Syria and Daesh (ISIS) because he wore a ‘Free Palestine’ badge to school and handed out some leaflets promoting the boycott, divestments and sanctions campaign. 
• A fourteen-year-old was referred to Prevent without his parents’ consent for not engaging in a music lesson.
• A schoolchild mentioned the ‘history of the Caliphate’ in a piece of homework about British foreign policy and was referred to social services for signs of radicalisation.
• A teacher decided to call in the parents of a student after they used the Arabic term for ‘praise be to God’.
• A Muslim schoolboy was questioned about Islamic State after a classroom discussion about environmental activism. He was left ‘scared and nervous’ by his experience, and afterwards was reluctant to join in class discussions for fear of being suspected of extremism.

Prevent is clearly leading to negative stereotyping of Muslim children and young people, and racial and religious profiling. We also believe that Prevent is undermining the duties of the schools under the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that direct and indirect unlawful discrimination is taken seriously, and that individuals or groups of students should not be treated unfairly or put at a disadvantage.

Making schools less safe
Prevent is making discussion of sensitive and controversial issues much more difficult in schools. Pupils with political opinions or who take part in protests are also coming under increasing surveillance. If the safe space that schools provide for discussion is restricted, and pupils feel that they can’t share their opinions without being reported, there is a risk that they may seek out spaces that are less safe.
Children and young people need to be able to speak openly with teachers about the issues they feel strongly about, including sensitive and controversial ones, without the fear that they will be profiled or put under suspicion.

Undermining the Children’s Convention
As a result of this, the Prevent duty presents a number of specific threats to the rights of children and young people. Despite the UK government being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding international agreement, there appears to have been no consideration at all given to the Convention as the Prevent duty was drafted. Apart from the key articles that ensure rights apply to all children without discrimination (Article 2), and the principle that governments must act in children’s best interests (Article 3), I think there are very specific concerns in relation to Article 13 which outlines how every child has the right to freedom of expression and ideas.

The challenges ahead
I will end by outlining some key questions and challenges:

1. What will the cost of Prevent be for the dignity, confidence and sense of belonging of Muslim children?
2. What will be the short and long-term impact of Prevent on schools and teachers? Already, in many schools, Prevent is causing significant nervousness and confusion among teachers. There is increasing evidence that teachers identify it as counter-productive and dangerous. The new duty risks closing down the very opportunities where the classroom can be used to develop an inclusive curriculum that fosters democratic skills and explores human rights.
3. What do we need to do next to challenge Prevent and thinking behind it, and work towards its repeal?

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