Letter: Any new curriculum developed for schools must stand by the truth of the Troubles
A letter from Kenny Donaldson:
We have lobbied for many years for the fuller inclusion of 'the Northern Ireland Troubles' to be taught within the curriculum of schools on both sides of the border and indeed across in Great Britain.
It is essential that children are aware of the realities of what terrorism and extremism brings.
Too often in today's fast-moving technological world such issues are dumbed down or romanticised, meaning that the gravity of what happened is lost.
We continue to engage with the Department of Education in the Republic of Ireland on these issues and have met with officials to discuss their intention to formally introduce the Northern Ireland Troubles into curriculum there.
They were first out of the blocks and we suspected something more substantive would come from the Dept of Education in Northern Ireland around these issues.
For years SEFF has been raising these issues and we have engaged with the main sectors of education operating within Northern Ireland in a focused and collaborative way.
This work continues. It is our contention that individual schools have too much autonomy in determining to what level ‘the Northern Ireland Troubles’ are or aren’t taught as well as the narrative from which teaching takes place.
We have built relationships with over 25 schools and have delivered a range of events in partnership with them – schools from across the education spectrum who support young people from across our community and throughout Northern Ireland and beyond.
In September we also begin an exciting new endeavour. Working collaboratively with the Resilience in Unity organisation, we will enter 25 universities based across Great Britain to deliver a unified message relaying the dangers of radicalisation and how young people are particularly susceptible to the messaging of extremism. Those events will also cover the impact and effects of terrorism glorification.
Young people must understand the facts of what occurred and then also discern amongst the varied narratives presented.
This issue is one of the most critical issues for our society going forward and we have already lobbied strongly that education must be a key pillar of a new victims strategy.
SEFF will be insisting that any new curriculum developed stands by the truth; that in the context of the Northern Ireland Troubles and irrespective of whether people had real or perceived grievances against others, that this never justified the use of criminal violence in the furtherance of or defence of a political objective.
Kenny Donaldson, SEFF director