The Department for Education has just been forced to ‘clarify’ a tweet that said it was ‘nonsense to say schools must teach gay rights’ and distinguished between gay rights and ‘British values’ as a ‘misunderstanding’.
The message, which was posted and then swiftly deleted over the weekend, has prompted some pretty stern criticism on Twitter and from Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron who called the post ‘unacceptable’.
The post was tweeted in response to a Sunday Times headline accompanying the newspaper’s interview with Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, which said Faith schools 'must teach gay rights'. The Department for Education were apparently trying to convey that it was nonsense that schools were being forced to teach gay rights against their will. The original tweet read: ‘Nonsense to say schools 'must teach gay rights'. We want schools to teach broad curric based on British values.’
As the tweet didn’t mention the Times story at all, many people accused the DfE of being homophobic and prompted questions as to why gay rights were not considered to be a part of British values. Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt wrote: ‘LGBT rights are British values. DfE must back compulsory sex and relationship education, including LGBT rights.’
This totally overshadows the interview with Nicky Morgan, who said some pretty progressional things about teaching gay rights in school, including how it was ‘crucial’ that Christian, Jewish and Muslim schools follow new rules requiring them to ‘actively promote’ fundamental British values, such as tolerance of other faiths and lifestyles, democracy and the rule of law.
After deleting the original tweet the DfE tweeted a ‘clarification’ to The Sunday Times, saying: ‘It is complete nonsense to say that schools are being forced to 'teach gay rights' against their will.
‘Ofsted are rightly ensuring that schools do not indoctrinate pupils about gay people – or any other people – being inferior. The same goes for schools that do things like make girls sit separately at the back of the class.
‘Both are practices which go directly against the fundamental British values of tolerance and respect. We believe schools should prepare all pupils for life in modern Britain. A broad and balanced curriculum is vital for this.’
Maybe the DfE should spend more time outlining a broad and balanced curriculum that lays down precisely what schools should and shouldn’t learn about modern Britain – including compulsory education about gay rights – and less time on Twitter. Might avoid some of this confusion.
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Picture: Rex
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.