In today's blog, (former young person) Nick Hawkes asks whether the education system could be doing more to solve the youth engagement crisis.
Settle down class, Today we have a pop quiz for you.
Who can tell me the name of the President of Tynwald? No one? Ok. How many local authorities are there in the Isle of Man? C’mon now. One more. What was the name of the founder of the Isle of Man Times who is widely considered to be the father of democratic reform in the Isle of Man? Oh, never mind...
Now I wager that the average reader of this blog would probably be able to answer all three of those questio
ns but stop a person on Strand Street, or my parents for that matter, and those odds would probably change quite drastically.
In no way do I want to berate anyone for not knowing who James Brown is or that there are 21 local authorities, but the lack of widespread knowledge of Manx history, culture and politics is a real concern and may be exacerbating a larger problem for the Isle of Man.
I passed through the Manx education system in the early part of this century and looking back on that time I am shocked at the absence of anything Manx in the curriculum.
We studied the English Civil War but hardly touched on what was happening in the Isle of Man at the time. We learnt about Kings and Queens but heard only a whisper of the Lord of Mann and whilst we had frequent visits to the House of Mannanan, Peel Castle and Rushen Abbey those trips were often outwith our ordinary syllabus.
Even in my politics class, the focus was placed firmly on Westminster and Washington. The Wedding Cake wasn’t even a consideration most of the time despite the fact that the Government proudly talks about the uniqueness and history of our own parliament and the importance of our political system. And whilst my time in Sixth Form happened to coincide with an election year, opportunities to actually learn about and engage in the Manx political system were limited, with student protests, election polling and junior Tynwald being the only real exposure to it (and I missed Junior Tynwald).
Whilst DESC may have been stamped on the desks, we followed a curriculum borrowed from England and our course resources, exams and assessments were designed firmly with another country in mind.
I don’t lay this at the door of our teachers (who at Ballakermeen were fantastic), but it does have something to do with our education system’s design. Whilst DESC may have been stamped on the desks, we followed a curriculum borrowed from England and our course resources, exams and assessments were designed firmly with another country in mind.
Now that isn’t a huge issue for a lot of subjects and I am not calling for ‘Manx Maths’ but that doesn’t mean that more could be done to improve Manx literacy in our schools.
There are lots of ways to achieve this. It could be as easy as peppering in the odd reference to our country in course materials, (something which DESC claims it already does). Whether it be paying our dues to Manx authors and poets in English Lit, giving some backstory to how historical events affected the Isle of Man and how we contributed to them (women’s suffrage, the screw propeller, the British Empire) or making reference to Tynwald in politics outside of election time - these simple additions would go some way to highlight the fact that the UK and the Isle of Man aren’t one and the same.
We could also go the other way and embed a political, cultural and historical education from an early age.
Take ‘Modern Studies’ in Scotland - a course which has been widely credited helping to do just that. Blending politics, rights and responsibilities, Scottish and British history and practical skills, this subject is taught in secondary schools across Scotland from ages 11 to 18. In the 60 years since its introduction, it has widely been seen as a success in improving political understanding for generations of young people.
But the question remains, why should we do this? What value does making the education system more Manx bring and what problem does it solve?
Well, it’s no secret that we are suffering from an engagement crisis. Whilst it doesn’t tell the full story turnout at election time paints a pretty stark picture, just 50% of registered voters showed up in 2021 and only 45% of 16 and 17-year-olds took to the polls.
We often hear politicians proudly state that we were one of the first countries in the world to give 16-year-olds the vote and in the same breath decry the fact that so many of our young people don’t bother to exercise that right. There is no one reason for this, you could argue it’s due to the prevalence of UK politics or the absence of parties but it’s not unreasonable to think that it may be difficult for someone to engage in a system and understand its importance when the only information you’ve been given on it is that Vikings had something to do with it around 1000 years ago.
Recognising that Manx politics, culture and history are its own, can help people to understand that the key to changing things starts on the Isle of Man. There is no silver bullet to solving political engagement but if we want to create lasting buy-in; embedding our warts and all history, our cultural contributions and politics into the curriculum may be a good place to start.
Spot on - and well-written, too.