Citizenship - Bernard Crick: Citizenship must begin to replace ethos in the classroom

Dr Johnson once said, in ruminating on "for what and why were we born?", that the real question was "why were we not born before?" Why, indeed, has it taken so long for England (not quite yet Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), unlike every other democratic regime in the world, to make citizenship a statutory subject? Well, we obviously thought we didn't need to. After all, were we not "the mother of parliaments"?

The schools that shaped the mind-set of most governments and higher civil servants throughout the last century were the independent schools. Ethos was more important than any citizenship curriculum. They had a most effective ethos of education for leadership – leadership over others in the army, the imperial and home civil service, parliament and the church. Some headmasters still think they have, even if most of their products now head for the Square Mile rather than the parade ground. The ethos stressed habitual loyalty and instinctive obedience to rules. The idea of the good citizen could be found in them, certainly, but rarely the idea of the active citizen – that all subjects of the crown should think of themselves as citizens with rights to be exercised as well as agreed responsibilities. The English idea of public service was top down.

Only some of the best of the comprehensive schools had something of a democratic ethos. Sound research has shown that when kids have some sense of possession of "our school", then they work harder all round. I like what Richard Hoggart wrote, in sorrow and in anger, that we hurl our young "into shark infested waters unprepared" if we don't educate them for the modern world through citizenship and critical thought.

The new Labour Government in 1997 was well aware that its victory was on a low turnout and, far more worrying, that the newly enfranchised 18- to 25-year-old voted the least of all and had an indifference to politics and public concerns that often spilled into cynicism. The terms of reference of the advisory group set up by David Blunkett as Secretary of State for Education were: "To provide advice on effective education for citizenship in schools – to include the nature and practices of participation in democracy; the duties, responsibilities and rights of individuals as citizens; and the value to individuals and society of community activity." So we were not set up debate the whether or why but to recommend on the how. Lord Baker, the former Conservative Secretary of State, was a member of the group and told us that he had wished it to be part of the original curriculum, but that She had simply said "no".

To be fair to Lord Baker, who backed our report, he was worried about the time available. Damian Green, shadow Education Secretary, has recently revived these worries – a legitimate concern shared by a good few teachers. But they both support citizenship education in principle. It was not a party matter. If it had been, I would hardly have been New Labour's first choice. Both the report of my committee and the statutory curriculum require the discussion of "events, issues and problems", but do not prescribe any discussion that raises alternative views.

We need both "good citizens" and "active citizens". And teachers, if I may preach before being practical, need to have a sense of mission about the new subject, to grasp the fullness of its moral and social aims. The advisory group boldly stated: "We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country: for people to think of themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life and with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting; to build on and radically extend to young people the best in existing traditions of volunteering and public service, and to make them individually confident in finding new forms among themselves."

In the report we quoted with emphasis from a Demos pamphlet by David Hargreaves, Professor of Education at Cambridge, who said: "Civic education is about the civic virtues and decent behaviour that adults wish to see in young people. But it is also more than this. Since Aristotle, it has been accepted as an inherently political concept that raises questions about the sort of society we live in, how it has come to take its present form, the strengths and weaknesses of current political structures, and how improvements might be made... Active citizens are as political as they are moral; moral sensibility derives in part from political understanding; political apathy spawns moral apathy."

That puts the essence of it into a nutshell. And we unpacked that shell into three strands: related, mutually dependent, but each needing a different place and treatment in the curriculum. Firstly, children learning from the very beginning socially responsible behaviour and personal character both in and beyond the classroom. This happens in any good primary school – but not in all as yet, alas; so the base is there, or can be readily. Secondly, learning about and participating in the life and concerns of their school and their local communities, including volunteering. Thirdly, pupils learning about and how to make themselves effective in public life through knowledge, skills and specific values – what some have called "political literacy".

It is a tall order to create a civic culture. Schools cannot do it alone. The example set by political leaders, celebrities and the media are also crucial, and often awful. But nothing can change without schools. Citizenship education is not a sufficient but it is a necessary condition for a more civil citizen society.

Sir Bernard Crick was formerly citizenship adviser to the DfES, and is author of 'In Defence of Politics, Essays on Citizenship', editor of 'Citizens: Towards a Citizen Culture', and first President of ACT (Association for Citizenship Teaching)