Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No164

Following the verdicts in the case of the murder of Henry Nowak, it is interesting to listen to people attempting to argue that there is not a two-tier form of policing in the UK when there is so much evidence that there is.

Racism is a bad thing. Being against racism is a good thing. That we live in a less racist society is a great thing. And serious surveys suggest that we are, in fact, one of the least racist countries in the world.

However, this is often not the perception.

Find a group of young adults and ask them if they’re racist. You’ll find that none of them are. Then ask them if they think other people are racist and that racism is a big problem in the UK, and they almost all say it is.

When I ask my students this, I point out to them that ‘despite you all stating you’re against racism, you appear to think everyone else is racist!’ I’m stretching the point, but not by much. So, what explains this disparity?

I’ll give you a couple more anecdotes.

When my son was about to start school, I visited the primary’s open day. Here I was informed by the deputy head that part of my five-year-old’s education would include two anti-racism training sessions. I thought this was strange.

Fast forward to high school, and my son’s best friend was a South Asian kid called Sahil. One day I asked my boy where Sahil’s family was from and he was shocked. ‘You can’t ask that Dad,’ he exclaimed, ‘that’s racist!’

A few years later, my daughter took Higher History. She’d already been taught about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and native Americans, and in her final year a major topic was the civil rights movement in America. The teacher was so focused on this issue that half the year was taken up by this topic and much of the rest of the curriculum was never taught, so the pupils had to learn in their own time about the New Deal and other aspects of post-war American history. Not to worry though, of course, because the question on the exam paper was all about the KKK.

Not that any of these subjects are unimportant, but noticeably, throughout her History education, she had heard nothing of the Renaissance or the Enlightenment; in fact, it’s safe to say that the teaching of Western civilisation, or simply British history in the round, was either superficial or non-existent.

Race and racism matter, but when it becomes an obsession we have a problem.

One of the best American sociologists of recent years, Russell Jacoby, talks about multiculturalism and similarly points out that it is not multiculturalism per se that is the issue, it’s the ‘cult’ of it.

The former anti-racist trainer Adrian Hart explains this cult well when talking about how even nursery schools get in on the action. For example, he explains that, Glasgow, nursery schools were sent an anti-racist pack, on the basis that “the earlier you can pick up any tendency towards discriminatory or prejudicial behaviour, the better chance you have of successfully tackling it”. Elsewhere, nursery schools in Kent are training staff in challenging racist statements from toddlers.

As Hart observed, anyone who has concerns or questions about this obsession knows full well that they should keep their thoughts to themselves. Why? Because racism is no longer a matter of politics of debate, or simply of education, it has become the new secular sin.

My son’s anti-racist training started 20 years ago. Hart’s pamphlet The Myth of Racist Kids was written 15 years ago. Since then, as we have noted, anti-racist education in Scotland and across the UK has gone into overdrive.

The implicit condemnation of all things white – or ‘WHITE!’, as Humza Yousaf would say – has become more explicit in the teaching of ‘white privilege’, helped by the Anti-Racism in Education Programme that aims to embed anti-racism in every subject.

Ignore for a moment the moralising and dogmatic quality of this ‘education’, the distortion of history, and the miserable and one-sidedly negative representation of white people and ‘white’ history, and think about what impact this approach has on kids who are not white – some of them at least.

This is a particular problem in inner-city areas and poorer parts of society, although the problem is a general one.

The problem is this. If we treat, for example, black kids as different. If we create generations of teachers who feel the moralised weight of anti-racism on their shoulders. If we teach that all the problems for black people are historical. We then risk creating a culture that cannot hold young black people to account. We fail to hold them to the same standards of behaviour as everybody else. We create a generation of young people who turn into Ali G caricatures, who spit, ‘is it cos ah is black’ or ‘it’s my culture’ or ‘don’t you diss me’, every time you attempt to challenge bad attitudes or actions. In other words, you risk creating a generation of infantilised, glaikit, aggressive victims who often lack basic self-control and at times use violence as a first resort.

Perhaps the best thing written on this matter was a letter by a black Berkeley history professor during the BLM riots in America.

Condemning the one dimensional and often factually inaccurate representation of the policing of black people, he argued that the major problem for young black people was that they were being patronised by ‘progressive’ authorities, constantly portrayed as victims, and as a result, were being educated to blame everybody but themselves for their difficulties. Here is just an excerpt from his letter, but the whole thing is worth a read:

The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating. No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.

He concluded that ‘No message will more surely devastate their futures’.

The tragedy of all of this is that, in my opinion, we not only have a two-tier system of policing in the UK, but also a two-tier system of education. Through it, young people from minority groups are desocialised – brought up in a limited environment, imprisoned in the bigotry of low expectations, patronised and demoralised.

All this is done in the name of anti-racism!

On another, although perhaps strangely connected note, below we have an article about youth unemployment and the role that ‘therapeutic welfarism’ has played in this. Strangely connected, because one could argue that another form of ‘desocialisation’ comes in the form of mental health labels. For far too many young people today, adopting this type of ‘victim’ label is yet another trap that lowers expectations and demoralises so many young adults.

Oh, and as an aside, as well as receiving anti-racist education at the age of five, the deputy head, on my visit to the school, also proudly explained to me that my son would be receiving therapeutic education in the form of regular circle-time talks. What could possibly go wrong...?

Stuart Waiton, Chair of SUE

Dr Linda Murdoch is a retired Director of Careers at the University of Glasgow.

Alan Milburn’s report makes several worrying observations about the increasing detachment of the young from work, but his conclusions duck laying the blame where it belongs!

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn was commissioned by the current UK government to lead an independent investigation into the soaring rates of young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET). The 220-page interim report, Young People and Work, points out that the number of NEETs has risen to more than one million (the highest it has been in 12 years) and that 60 percent of all NEETs and 45 percent of 24-year-old NEETs have never worked. This rise is costing the UK taxpayer an estimated £125 bn a year. Milburn concludes that the country’s young people have fallen victim to poorer mental health and a changed world of work. Milburn therefore argues that because of these vulnerabilities the government needs to provide less onerous pathways into work.

Today, youth unemployment stands at between 12 and 16 percent, depending on how you calibrate the figures. When I began work as a careers adviser in the early 1980s, in many parts of the UK this figure was 50 percent. Although today far more school-leavers go on to higher education, making it difficult to draw direct comparisons, what is incontestable is that of the one million NEETs, more than 600,000 are classed as ‘not actively looking for work’. In the 1980s, this category was unheard of, as the young had no choice but to take up the offer of a place on the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) or Youth Training Scheme (YTS) or have their Supplementary Benefit of between £14.30 and £20.55 a week (depending on age) withdrawn indefinitely.

The other incontestable change is that today’s NEETs are inclined to claim that mental health problems are stopping them from seeking work. Milburn himself says that those who say they are NEET due to a ‘work-limiting’ health condition such as anxiety, depression or stress has risen by 70 percent. Although the report acknowledges that the welfare state pays disability benefits that are higher than the minimum wage, he resists the obvious conclusion that it is incentivising disability at the expense of taking work. Instead, he says that there are not enough jobs for the young, and that those that do exist are difficult to get or too demanding for this cohort, who appear less resilient than their predecessors.

Milburn ignores the growing evidence that suggests the increasing difficulty employers have in getting many young people to show any kind of commitment or work ethic at all. Many of 705,000 jobs currently being advertised are in shortage areas that do not pay well, such as social care and retail. However, it is also reported that the applicants for these jobs are overwhelmingly from those who originate from non-EU countries. It seems that those who were educated differently, in more traditional cultures, have more of a work ethic than British youth.

The report also ignores the fact that many young people turn up their noses at jobs that only pay the minimum wage, and think that those who take them are mugs, as they can get just as much – or more – by staying at home, particularly if you claim incapacity and disability benefits.

Numerous employers have testified to the low number of applicants or the no-shows for interviews for not only entry-level jobs but also apprenticeships and other training opportunities. Others insist that many young people lack initiative, drive and resilience, and too often cite mental health concerns when faced with the demands of the workplace.

Young people have become increasingly resigned to a view that work is not for them. When asked why they do not accept entry-level or low-paid jobs, many say that they do not want to start a job that they might not like or find too much to cope with. Moreover, many fear coming off benefits only to have to go through the trouble of reapplying for them when the job doesn’t work out for them. They value the sense of security that comes from getting a regular income from benefits without having the responsibility of working for it. As most live at home, parents are increasingly footing the bill.

Compare this outlook to the 1980s, when kids were desperate for any job and embarked on YTSs and YOPs as the only potential way to get one. Being on benefits was a source of shame, and taking training places or jobs, however lowly, provided a sense of dignity.

This is not young people’s fault but a result of the way they are now increasingly socialised into adult life. Education, and its insistence on focusing pupils on their mental health and wellbeing, is a root cause of our failing work ethic.

The current generation of 18- to 24-year-olds is the first full cohort to be educated wholly under the changes made to school education in Scotland through the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), and the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) programme in the rest of the UK. These policies, which elevated the importance of feelings and competencies over the key foundation of knowledge, were introduced in primary and secondary schools in Scotland in 2005, and a bit later in England and Wales.

These developments are key because their purpose was to ensure that pupils feelings took precedence over their thinking processes. Of course, ‘feelings’ are important facets in a young person’s development, but the change implemented was that they now took precedence over learning facts and other kinds of knowledge. The logical conclusion is that if learning knowledge makes you feel uncomfortable or stressed, then it should be avoided at all costs. As a result, education risks becoming more about validating a pupil’s emotional outlook than about giving them the knowledge-based confidence to go out into the world and make something of themselves.

These developments in the curriculum were underpinned by a cultural change in society whereby psychological fragility was valorised as a more authentic reflection of what makes us human. This ethos of frailty has become a central facet of how young people now understand themselves and the relationships they build with the wider world. This can be seen in how young people often tell you about their ADHD, autism, OCD or anxiety when introducing themselves. In Scottish schools, a record 299,445 pupils are registered with Additional Support Needs (ASN), equating to 43 percent of the total student population – double the figure for 2015. It should be no surprise then that this is reflected in young people’s attitude to work when this is how they are encouraged to view themselves. In education, as in work, personal vulnerabilities have become the primary consideration.

The accommodation to vulnerability is mirrored in the Welfare State.

Most children whose parents already claim child disability benefits go straight on to adult disability benefits, thus increasing the disincentive to work. The largest of these benefits, Personal Independence Payment (PIP) (England and Wales) and Adult Disability Payment (ADP) (Scotland), are awarded solely on the claimant being able to show they have lowered living or mobility functionality, not ability to work. In the majority of cases, these claims do not require verification from a trained clinician.

As there is no requirement to get a job, penalties do not apply to these benefits. Benefit penalties only really apply to those who are actively looking for work and receiving the Jobseeker’s Allowance benefit, the value of which has dropped: in 2010 it was worth £98 per week, but now it is £91 per week.

Not only is it the lowest-paying benefit, but Jobseeker’s Allowance, unlike disability benefits, can be stopped if claimants fail to show that they are actively looking for work. Because Jobseeker’s Allowance declines in relative value and comes with the harshest penalties attached, claimants are incentivised to transfer on to incapacity or disability benefits. In short, claimants get more money for not looking for a job. Not only does this valorise not working or looking for work, but there is also a plethora of welfare advisers – including Citizens Advice, Help to Claim, and We are With You, as well as those employed directly by the state (e.g. Social Security Scotland) – who see it as their job to maximise entitlement to benefits, especially if the person is facing sanctions and or financial hardship.

This notion that it pays to claim incapacity and disability benefits, instead of working or looking for work, is supported by a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report Why has the NEET rate risen?, which suggests that the increase in the numbers in this group is largely due to the rise in applications for health related/no work requirement benefits. Indeed, in most regions of the UK, notably Scotland, this is the only reason for the sharp rise.

Welfarism is incentivising disability at the expense of the work ethic. It has been reported that an 18-year-old who claims the full range of incapacity and disability benefits can get £21,000 (tax free) while the minimum wage for an 18-year-old stands at £22,500 (before tax). That is not to deny that there is a significant lack of decent jobs in the UK; red tape, regulations and high tax rates have led to a lack of good-quality entry job opportunities for the young. However, it begs the real question: that even if there were good jobs, would today’s youth have a work ethic to take them up?

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A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight.

https://archive.ph/cZhjC Josephine Bartosch, Gender self-ID was never the law. Barrister Akua Reindorf KC speaks about the controversial trans guidance the government is so loath to implement. 26/03/26

https://archive.ph/xJu5T Steerpike, Named: The MPs gunning to overturn trans guidance. 03/06/26

https://archive.ph/Gmduf Jenny Lindsay, Anyone who remembers ‘awkward’ adolescence should be alarmed by Greens’ push for ‘conversion therapy’ bill. SNP ministers must be less catastrophically stupid on this issue than they were on gender self-identification. 25/05/26

https://archive.ph/KJMY0 Szu Ping Chan, One in seven university graduates are Neets. Flagship government review says number of economically inactive young people has hit record high. 28/05/26

Jenny Holland, Island of Strangers: How ‘Diversityism’ Broke Britain and Why Free Speech Is Now Impossible. An excellent, must-read new book from The Free Speech Union’s Dr. Ben Jones. 31/05/26

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/06/01/why-does-a-museum-want-to-cancel-its-own-charles-dickens-exhibition/ Sean Walsh, Why does a museum want to cancel its own Charles Dickens exhibition? Britain’s absurdly right-on heritage sector is slowly destroying its raison d’être. 01/06/26

Tom Bennett, Reclaiming the Classroom: How to Fix Student Behaviour in Australian Schools. My thoughts at the CIS panel event, Sydney May 2026. 02/06/26

Jenna Robinson, Education Needs Humans, Not Just Apps. Apps are insufficient to provide students with a rich, comprehensive educational experience, and human and physical elements will always be essential. 02/06/26

Tom Bennett, Building desired behaviour- new Flemish guidance for schools published. A new way to approach behaviour in Flemish schools. 03/06/26

https://www.thetimes.com/article/b98c4ee7-a558-4fa4-99cd-365e574a2fd5?shareToken=ee2b955f755291d95d0605d2d17ea1d3 Marc Horne, Scottish schools must provide single-sex lavatories, judge rules. The judgment that unisex facilities discriminate against girls came in a case brought by the parents of a pupil at East Calder Primary School. 04/06/26

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/jk-rowling-warning-after-scottish-37249714 Lucinda Cameron, JK Rowling’s school warning after Scottish council loses court case on gender neutral loos. A judge blasted a Scottish council after the parents of a little girl in primary 1 said she didn’t want to use the toilet while boys are there – and told the authority ‘SNP guidance is NOT LAW’. 04/06/26

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