Alarm bells were rung by Carol Taylor, a local school teacher. She is profoundly disappointed by her students’ ignorance especially with respect to British and American politics. In two years’ time, students will be able to vote in these council elections. Now more than ever, says Taylor, the imperative is to equip young people with the political education they desperately need.
Taylor also underscored that a lot of her students are turned off by the disconnect between American and British political systems. In fact, she said, “Most of our students are extremely extremely misled regarding American and British politics. This confusion is only made worse by the constant presence of American political figures in their daily news feeds.
One reason is that Donald Trump shows up every other post on their newsfeed. They’re completely familiar with him and think he’s really funny,” she said. Taylor, who has extensive experience working with foreign political leaders, saw a worrisome disconnect. Some of her pupils appear ill equipped to come home and manage their own democratic processes.
They’ll be casting their ballots in the city council elections in under two years. At the moment these groups don’t even know what council elections to begin with. Otherwise, they’re likely not going to show up to vote,” she cautioned. Unfortunately, most of our students do not understand the critical role that participating in elections has on their education. Taylor’s other concern is that most parents don’t know what they need to know, or care enough to learn.
This story is emblematic of what is happening at-scale with youth political engagement. Latest figures reveal that just 8% of secondary school students are able to name the First Minister. Even more striking, less than half can identify Prime Minister Keir Starmer by name. This significant gap in knowledge speaks to the larger issue of young peoples’ expected voter turnout in the upcoming election.
Rocio Cifuentes, the Children’s Commissioner, echoed these concerns, stating that English politics tends to dominate young people’s perceptions. I just find that English politics is much more establishment… It’s what people think is more important,” said one student. Such a viewpoint greatly understates the real risk that many of Wales’ youth will miss the lessons of Welsh politics. These meaningless political decisions seriously affect their lives.
Cifuentes underscored that typically we think of politics as a boogeyman, as something to shy away from engaging with around the family dinner table. By failing to involve children and young people in these critical discussions, we’re truly failing them. She emphasized the need to transform political education. That’s why she referred to 2021 as a “false start,” due to the pandemic drastically shaking things up.
Political analyst Richard Wyn Jones, director of the Wales Governance Centre, highlighted the need for political education from an early age. He said, “You need to educate people about these hierarchies of governance. Urge them to participate in these structures.” He added that this basic understanding of how government works is essential to building the informed citizenry that will one day help restore healthy democracy.
Students testify from their own experiences on the massive impact that politics being reported to them like this makes. Like one Newseumes student named Jackson said, “I receive the majority of my news through social media, platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this dependence on social media for political information has left young people confused when it comes to understanding how traditional political systems work.
Lottie, a 15-year-old student, described her frustration with other students not knowing anything about politicians including the First Minister. I mean I think it’s really worrying clearly because when you’re 16 in Wales, you can vote legally. So if folks don’t know who she [Morgan] is then they’re not going to turnout to vote,” she explained.
