Over the Top in Our Schools?

Stroud Quakers present play on the military in education

EVEN on a rainy Tuesday evening, seats at Lansdown Hall, were all taken for Over the Top, a short play by Lynn and Dave Morris of Journeymen Theatre company, and for the talk that followed on October 27.

The aim of the programme as a whole, hosted by Stroud Quakers, was to spark discussion of a trend for increased promotion of 'military values' in state schools.

Over the Top brought the issues at stake vividly to life, as peace activist and war widow Kathy confronted her son's head teacher, over his determination to co-opt her son into an 'adventure weekend' with the army, of the kind now increasingly offered to school students.

Dr Roberts is no villain – only a total believer in the benefits of a military influence on his charges.

Kathy makes a powerful, often moving, plea, for us to understand the dangers of such a one-sided view.

There is no slick happy ending to Over the Top.

All Kathy's passion, her bitter experience of bereavement, can't keep her son from exploring his chosen path, egged on by the gung ho headmaster.

The audience is left wondering what, if anything, she might have done differently.

Owen Everett's talk, on behalf of the campaign organisation Forces Watch, gave the facts behind the fiction of Over the Top.

The armed forces now make around 11,000 visits to secondary schools every year reaching over 650,000 school students, with careers events, film showings, outdoor activity days.

In state schools, 100 new military cadet units have been established, with a further 150 planned, at a total cost of £95 million.

In glossy new 'education packs' the tragedies and horrors of the battlefield are not mentioned.

Students are, Owen Everett claims, offered a sanitised version of war.

Forces Watch are not anti-military, he says. 'We're talking about balance.'

Alternative views should be aired alongside promotions by the armed forces, so students can judge for themselves.