Teachers in Scotland are being briefed to spy on their students for signs that they are questioning the official narrative on the Covid-19 response.
In a briefing note to ‘senior leaders, teachers, and safeguarding leads’ the Scottish Government offers what it calls ‘a short summary of the ways in which extremists have responded to Covid-19’ and offers definitions of ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’, and ‘conspiracy theories’.
Although the emphasis is ostensibly on potential links between alternative perspectives and the risk of radicalisation, the fact remains that Scottish classrooms are now being used to identify children who are not ‘on-message’.
And what, exactly, are the implications of that? What happens to the ‘offenders’? Letters home? Exclusion? Reprogramming? And where Scotland leads, will the rest of the UK follow? Or perhaps they already have — the UK Government’s Commission for Countering Terrorism published a 17-page guide last year ‘How hateful extremists are exploiting the pandemic’ last year.
Join me at 11.15am today when I’ll take a closer look at this document and other policies being pursued on both sides of the Border that potentially impinge on the basic rights of children, parents, and — down the line — all of us.
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