Millitary recruitment in Scottish FE Colleges
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Hello,
Following last weeks visit to the college from the Armed Forces, I would be very grateful if you could take the time to read the following email and to consider signing your name to the petition attached. Thank you.
I am very concerned at the drive by the military to attempt to use schools and FE colleges as recruiting grounds for the armed services. Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, has already voted by a clear majority to call for a ban on the armed forces targeting recruitment campaigns at schools and colleges. I believe that the military are tackling a shortage of recruits by deliberately targeting impressionable teenagers in deprived areas.
The number of regimental recruitment team visits to schools in
Scotland rose from 14 in 2003-04 to 153 by March 2006. There is evidence to show that the rise in army recruitment in schools reflects the growing desperation of Army chiefs who are unable to maintain recruitment numbers through conventional methods and are now targeting schools and colleges in deprived areas of Scotland. I have been in contact with MSP Christine Grahame who said that army recruitment in schools has increased by almost 1000\% in three years and that Govan High School for example has had 14 visits in the last two years alone, equivalent to the total number of visits to Scottish schools by the Army in the financial year 2003/04 at the start of the Iraq war.
The Army are clearly under pressure in terms of resources and
recruitment but the answer does not lie in recruiting school and college pupils from Scotland's most deprived communities. If pupils want to join the Army then there are numerous recruitment centres around Scotland which they can choose to visit. But what these figures show is a clear and deliberate attempt to exploit youngsters living in deprived communities and all public bodies have a moral duty to ensure that this cynical tactic is stopped.
Thank you very much
Following last weeks visit to the college from the Armed Forces, I would be very grateful if you could take the time to read the following email and to consider signing your name to the petition attached. Thank you.
I am very concerned at the drive by the military to attempt to use schools and FE colleges as recruiting grounds for the armed services. Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, has already voted by a clear majority to call for a ban on the armed forces targeting recruitment campaigns at schools and colleges. I believe that the military are tackling a shortage of recruits by deliberately targeting impressionable teenagers in deprived areas.
The number of regimental recruitment team visits to schools in
Scotland rose from 14 in 2003-04 to 153 by March 2006. There is evidence to show that the rise in army recruitment in schools reflects the growing desperation of Army chiefs who are unable to maintain recruitment numbers through conventional methods and are now targeting schools and colleges in deprived areas of Scotland. I have been in contact with MSP Christine Grahame who said that army recruitment in schools has increased by almost 1000\% in three years and that Govan High School for example has had 14 visits in the last two years alone, equivalent to the total number of visits to Scottish schools by the Army in the financial year 2003/04 at the start of the Iraq war.
The Army are clearly under pressure in terms of resources and
recruitment but the answer does not lie in recruiting school and college pupils from Scotland's most deprived communities. If pupils want to join the Army then there are numerous recruitment centres around Scotland which they can choose to visit. But what these figures show is a clear and deliberate attempt to exploit youngsters living in deprived communities and all public bodies have a moral duty to ensure that this cynical tactic is stopped.
Thank you very much
32 Signatures
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Louise Bradley
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Kevan Scade
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Concerned
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Suzanne Hollywood
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Claire whyte
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Gayle Henderson
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Craig Steele
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Jonathan Bradley
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Joanne Ramsey
- Comments
- The idea of offering young people financial incentives to sign up to the military is, I would suggest, bordering on exploitation. Such financial inducements, it may be argued, risk the validity of the young person's consent. Two thousand pounds is to some people a large amount of money, in particular, when they are young students suffering financially.
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yvonne butler
- Comments
- my son is joining the army, it was his own informed choice but I would have been very unhappy if he had been recruited at college
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Grace D Poulter
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ian dickinson
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George McBean
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Suzanne Wilmott
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Heather Henderson
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angela mccormick
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Liz Conachy
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Thomas Murphy
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Lesley Martin
- Comments
- I agree this is a very worrying development
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Robyn Walker
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Barry Queen
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Louise MacDonald
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Anna Richmond
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Stephen McNally
- Comments
- I wholly agree with what has already been said on this subject and think schools and colleges should only be a recruitment area for civillian job opportunities.
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Alison MacLeod
- Comments
- I am absolutely opposed to this recruitment strategy
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Steven Mullaney
- Comments
- Leave those kids alone!!
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Paul Echlin
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fiona stevenson
- Comments
- Whilst I appreciate we need a defence system for Britian, I do not believe the methods of recruitment are fair. Army personnel should only attend colleges/universities as part of an overall jobs fair, and not to single out students in some of the most depravated areas of the city. This practice should be abolished and replaced with fair representation across the military spectrum, and with a 'warts and all' account of military life, not using the carrot to entice children to the fantasy of a better life.
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Paul Hyland
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Charlotte Ahmed
- Comments
- Iam an EIS member
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SCOTT TERRY
- Comments
- THATS GOOD
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32
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