UK:British teachers voted yesterday to back staff who resist army recruitment drives and called for "education for peace" to be embedded in the curriculum.
Delegates at the National Union of Teachers' (NUT) annual conference called for a campaign to undermine efforts to enlist new teenage recruits, and backed a motion committing the union to "support teachers and schools in opposing ministry of defence recruitment activities that are based upon misleading propaganda". Delegate Paul McGarr said: "Personally, I find it difficult to imagine any recruitment material that is not misleading.
"We would have material from the MoD saying 'Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people's countries'. 'Join the Army and we will send you to bomb, shoot and possibly torture fellow human beings in other countries'."
The motion committed the NUT to holding a "summit" to consider the issue of recruitment in schools.
A spokesman for the MoD said: "Our recruitment practices avoid 'glamourising war' and 'propaganda'. Anyone considering a career in the armed forces is presented with clear information and all aspects of service life are discussed in detail, following a sensitive recruitment process. - (PA)