POLITICAL apathy is one of the major problems restraining our youth. We are direly in need of a robust political education.

The government has tried — and for the most part failed — to implement a basic political education in the mandatory personal, social, health and economic curriculum, an overall disaster that tries to ram an overpacked but somehow still ineffective curriculum into an already full school day. 

Having experienced this briefly before my school decided it was a waste of time compared with the vital GCSEs we were going to sit, it was normally an hour to sit and update Facebook statuses and explore the world via daft Google searches, rather than sit and listen to a teacher who has no prior experience teaching the subject, and in regards to a political education barely had more knowledge than the students themselves. 

We owe our youth a better political education than an uninformed — and I say that to critique the way the curriculum has been designed to be implemented rather than a criticism of teachers — overworked teacher fumbling through a curriculum they are barely to grips with themselves, lacking the time to do it justice, having to prioritise their own subject.

But of course the question will always become: “Can we trust the government to design an unbiased political education?” 

Under the current climate, I can’t say I know for sure. Can we really trust a government that is so desperate to convince not only the public, but its own party about Brexit to not use a mandatory political education as a hunk of propaganda in a desperate attempt to cling to power and indoctrinate our youth? 

Of course, this is massively dystopian and I severely doubt the government would even attempt to do something so brazen but the underlying question still remains. 

While the government has successfully created an unbiased course for A-level, a shorter counterpart aimed at secondary schools would be reduced down to delivering facts, leaving little time for students to explore their own opinions — one of the things which makes A-level politics so successful. 

If we suppose that an unbiased course was created — formed from manifestos, party policies and how local and national governments function — then the question immediately changes to who would teach this? 

Teachers are already (rightfully, may I add) striking over issues such as pay and workload — so how do we give students the education they deserve while not adding more strain to teachers? Although I am all in favour of a mandatory political education, the logistics of implementing it become difficult. 

Similarly, the same complaints of workload are already coming from students. How do we begin to justify adding more work when they wouldn’t even have anything to show for it? 

In my mind at least there are two solutions. The first one would be to use assemblies — reducing the amount of time on normal notifications and updates — and devote most of their time to a political education. 

Even a short, weekly assembly would begin to add up pupils’ knowledge over five years and, provided they are delivered effectively by a teacher with a relevant qualification such an A-level in politics, would leave students with a solid base of knowledge to inform their own opinions and begin to reduce the problem of apathy. 

If young people begin to learn about party policy and how all candidates aren’t the same — one of the more commonly cited reasons for abstention from voting — then they will already have the knowledge to separate parties and candidates alike in their minds and put this to use when they are of age to vote. 

Another solution, which would take much longer to develop and even longer to implement, would be to create a short, accredited course in politics — equivalent to maybe half a GCSE at the most — so students and teachers alike don’t feel like their time is being wasted with something they’ll get nothing from. 

Creating a course would result in students gaining a more in-depth understanding than an assembly would allow while similarly giving young people the feeling that they are learning for a reason — convincing them to take the subject seriously and do their own independent research. 

If it were equivalent to less than most subjects, it would open up the amount of people who would be able to teach it — not only those with A-levels in politics but also with those in related subjects such as history having the opportunity to transfer their understanding — possibly with the addition of sending them on a short training course to give them the basic knowledge to allow them to transfer their already existing skills over. 

By giving schools the opportunity of providing a qualification, it would encourage them to give their students the political education they deserve, rather than a series of assemblies, which would be more difficult to assess in terms of its success. 

To properly combat political apathy, we need to educate our young people — giving the means to form their own opinion without influencing them. 

Perhaps in the current political climate, this is oversimplistic and overoptimistic. I’m completely aware of this. 

But we owe our young people the power to make up their own minds in a fair and unbiased way, and by even considering the possible framework for something like this, it allows us to move one step closer to the reality.