Time for Inclusive Education

Time for Inclusive Education (TIE)

Time for Inclusive Education logo
Formation	28 June 2015 (2015-06-28)
Founders	Jordan Daly Liam Stevenson
Type	Campaign
Purpose	LGBT rights
Region served	Scotland
Website	www.tiecampaign.co.uk

Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) is a campaign group which has a stated aim of addressing issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) visibility within the Scottish education system. The group put their case to the public petitions committee of the Scottish Parliament, however, despite finding some support their petition was rejected in January 2016.

History

Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) was co-founded by Scottish campaigners Jordan Daly and Liam Stevenson, after the pair met following the Scottish independence referendum.^[1] It was launched on the 28 June 2015,^[2] the 46th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, with assistance from Jimmy Reid Foundation project Common Weal.^[3]

On 5 August 2015, Daly submitted an online petition to the Scottish Parliament on behalf of TIE, calling for the statutory inclusion of LGBT issues within all school curricula, arguing that "The current Scottish Education Curriculum allows schools to opt-out of progressive teaching programmes that discuss topics relating to the LGBTI+ community, such as the Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) framework. This is unproductive."^[4]

As the campaign progressed, TIE altered their initial aims and were joined by diversity campaigner and Knightswood Secondary School teacher John Naples-Campbell.^[5]

In October 2015, TIE released its first publication - Time for Inclusive Education - which consisted of the personal stories and testimony of individuals across Scotland, and outlined statistics uncovered by Stonewall Scotland in 2012.^[6] The publication was delivered to all 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament and featured contributions from various organisations, campaigners and individuals - including Equality Network, LGBT Youth Scotland, Stonewall Scotland, RISE - Scotland's Left Alliance and the Vale of Leven Academy LGBT committee.^[6]

Campaigners at the Scottish Parliament.

On 27 October 2015, Daly, Stevenson and Naples-Campbell appeared before the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee to give evidence to MSPs Kenny MacAskill, Hanzala Malik, Jackson Carlaw, Michael McMahon, John Wilson, David Torrance and Angus MacDonald.^[7] TIE proposed that every school have a teacher trained in how to teach LGBT issues.^[8] The committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government and relevant educational institutions, including the Educational Institute of Scotland and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.^[9] The committee showed interest towards the proposals.^[10]

Support

Jordan Daly at UNISON conference.

The campaign has gained support from various figures across Scotland and internationally; including Welsh international rugby union referee Nigel Owens,^[11] CEO of Ditch the Label, Liam Hackett,^[12] human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, American activist Alicia Garza,^[13] Patrick Harvie, Jean Urquhart, Pat Nevin, Jonathon Shafi and Cat Boyd.^[14]

In February 2016, UNISON became the first trade union to officially back the campaign following a speech from Daly at the union's Scottish council conference. Delegates pledged their continued support and gave a financial donation of £1000 - which TIE stated would be used to directly train groups of teaching staff in how to tackle LGBT-phobic behaviours and attitudes in their schools.^[15]

Aims

TIE's campaigners have claimed that the current lack of LGBT education in Scottish schools is a "national disgrace",^[8] holding that "education is an absolutely vital tool to tackle LGBT-phobic behaviours, and discrimination, and it must be utilised."^[16] It lists its primary aim as ensuring that all Scottish schools offer an education that is inclusive of LGBT topics, and have outlined various methods to achieve this.

We recommend that a working group be established within the Scottish Parliament that can directly seek to address this, with the ultimate goal of LGBTI+ inclusion in all school curricula and pastoral care resources. School reviews should henceforth be carried out, to evaluate whether individual institutions are creating an LGBTI+ inclusive schooling environment.

Teachers can play a key role in eradicating LGBTI-phobia and creating an inclusive learning environment for their pupils, and so we believe that teacher training should be highly prioritised. With a guarantee from the Scottish Government that all schools have the financial means to send teachers to the inclusive training programmes that are currently available, we can go a long way in addressing longstanding issues.

Further, we hold that all trainee teachers should receive LGBTI+ training as part of their required qualification.^[17]

Response

Scottish LGBT organisations have expressed their support for TIE's aims, with LGBT Youth Scotland writing to the Scottish Parliament's petitions committee, outlining that: "Improvements in LGBT students’ educational experiences have not been consistent within Scottish schools and there are still high levels of prejudice and exclusion."^[18]

Stonewall Scotland, in their written response, outlined their support for improved teacher training, holding that: "We would agree with the TIE campaign that there is significant inconsistency in the approach schools and local authorities take to addressing LGBT issues. Whilst we are delighted to see more schools addressing LGBT issues in a proactive way, they must be the rule and not the exception. We would welcome a clear strategy from the Scottish Government as to how they will systematically address the bullying and lack of support and experienced by LGBT young people in Scotland."^[19]

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), whilst in agreement that teachers must have knowledge of equalities issues, expressed concern regarding teacher training: outlining that "...this is a busy time for trainee teachers and that there are lots of other demands on their time", and that a teacher's understanding of human rights issues is "...likely to be gained and kept updated through information provided by their schools and through career-long professional learning."^[20]

The teachers' union, Educational Institute of Scotland, furthered this argument in their response: "...the EIS is of the view that practitioners are skilled in identifying their own professional learning needs."^[21] Following their submission - which expressed concerns for the rights of religious parents and teachers - the EIS came under scrutiny on social media from many of its own members, leading the union to publish a clarification of their position, outlining that they "share the concerns of TIE".^[22]

The Scottish Government responded to TIE's calls, stating that: "The Scottish Government is clear that there is no place in Scotland for prejudice or discrimination, and that everyone deserves to be treated fairly regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or sexual orientation. We must continue, unrelentingly, to tackle prejudice and discrimination and promote equality and diversity; and we must begin this work early in schools."^[23] They outlined that they have taken specific action to tackle homophobic bullying in the past, with the creation of a teaching toolkit - and claimed that their next steps in tackling this would be to assess whether the current toolkit should be updated to provide teachers with the confidence to tackle homophobic bullying after the revised National Approach is published in 2016.

Public Petition

On 12 January 2016, the petition put forward by TIE was unanimously rejected by the Public Petitions Committee.^[24] Ministers expressed sympathy with the campaign.^[25] Committee Convener Michael McMahon explained that the petition called for LGBT education to be engrained in statute, and that the school curricula are not statutory, with the exception of Religious and Moral Education.^[26]

Crowdfunding Appeal

On 12 February 2016, TIE launched a crowdfunding appeal, setting a target of £5000 which they plan to use towards training Scottish teaching staff in how to tackle homophobia, biphobia and transphobia within schools.^[27]

Criticism

The campaign has been criticised by Reverend David Robertson of the Free Church of Scotland, who claimed that its aims were in breach of the rights of Christian parents. Writing to the Scottish Parliament, Robertson expressed his concern that TIE's petition was a "Trojan horse to impose an ideological perspective on all pupils, whether they want it or not".^[28]

References

External links

• Official website