Schools and Colleges – Building the Party’s Future

"Education, Education, Education" was Labour's buzz phrase in 1997, and what have we got
to show for it? An education system with far too little to distinguish it from that of the 19 th
Century. With a new Conservative led government, Conservative Future has an opportunity
to support OUR Government sorting out yet another mess left to us by Blair & Brown.

Since the formation of CF, we have always had a tendency to fail to reflect all the age groups
we represent, and one of the most forgotten age groups are the under 18s. While much has
been done in recent years to attempt to tackle this problem, and much can be learnt from their
experiences and improve upon their successes, we need to take an unashamedly proactive
step to remedy this. To CF, those at school and college are a vital part of our membership.
And let’s not forget to MPs, AMs, PPCs and Councillors they are an untapped resource of
activists that could support campaigning and political activism now and in the future.

While there are many events that are held every year at universities or in pubs and clubs
designed for the 18+ CF activist, we risk the disenfranchisement of groups of large swaithes
of CF that are too young to come along to such events.

While I have been meeting members around the country, they feel the blame lies in the lack
of clear direction in knowing what to do with this age group. That is why I have decided to
create a policy document that sets a clear and considered direction of where we should be
taking our policies towards schools and colleges.

With the help and ideas of many people like Sam Austrums, Branch Chairman of Brigg and
Goole in Yorkshire, who is running my Schools Campaign, we have come up with a number
of key ideas that can help to encourage more school and college students to get involved with
CF.

Events

Recently I was invited to attend the annual event in Parliament with the Rt. Hon. Peter Lilley
MP. Each year he gets around 100 school and college students from across his Hertfordshire
constituency to the Houses of Parliament to talk about the British Political System, answer
their questions and then give them a tour of the House of Commons. This is an excellent
model for all MPs who want to reach out to youth organisations. From a branch perspective,
those that turn up can be contacted by local CF branches and invited along to an event in the
constituency at a later date. MPs across the country as well as PPCs from each constituency
who can link up with their nearest Conservative MP should be supported by CF to replicate
this model. The feedback from the attendees at these events was excellent and I fully
endorse their innovative example.

We shouldn’t forget that similar events can be held by MEPs; schools and colleges can be
invited to the European Parliament and if a branch would like me to work on logistics with an
MEP, we centrally at CF should be there to support the planning of more ambitious
experiences like these.

Party Conference

I intend to spend the next year working with CCHQ to set up a schools and colleges fringe
event at Party Conference. This will enable young people to come along meet MPs and
Ministers and crucially, to discuss their views on educational policy. Many CF members
under the age of 18 always feel that conference and other events are not a place that they
can go and enjoy themselves, as the events are normally targetted towards over 18s even our
core activities like Party for Change. Giving a clear sign that there events and opportunities
for all will encourage more under 18s to attend conference.

Campaigns

Our youngest members (and potential members!) are an untapped activist base for our
election campaigns, especially if they do not have a university or similar branch in the area.
There are thousands of young people across the UK who are enthusiastic about getting
involved in politics from an early age, and we should see one key job of CF as helping in this
process.

With the example of Richmond Park Conservative Future, Ben Mallet spent a lot of effort
working with their new MP Zac Goldsmith to encourage more people under the age of 18 to
get on board and help out. It may sound obvious but instead of heading to a pub after
campaigns they had the great idea of heading to a local café so that younger members felt
that they could come along to campaigns. Sometimes simple steps are all that are needed to
make a big impact.

Every year 15-18 year old school and college student is encouraged to go out into the
workplace for a couple of weeks and carry out work experience. This is a great opportunity
for constituency offices to have young activists working in the office, as well as a brilliant
opportunity for school and college students to learn more about the political process and get
involved in campaigning. We will be encouraging more elected representatives to work with
schools in this process of placing work experience students in our offices.

Citizenship Education

Schools are consistently wanting to think of new ways to spice up what can be slightly dry
citizenship education. What better way than to get your local Conservative MP or
representative to come along so that they can talk about the political process and the party
system? Under my leadership, CF will be actively encouraging local MPs to work with their
local CF branches to increase interest and membership using such a method. These can be
used to gather data and contacts on potential members, and used to invite new recruits to
local activities!

Debating

Over recent years there has been a growth in youth debating with and between between
colleges and schools. CF can capitalise on this as a part of the Conservative Future Policy
Forum I will be setting up. I will be working with strategic partners to produce competition for
the most fun and engaging debates that branches can hold with local schools. If any branch
wants to set something like this up, we will provide support and advice.

CF Regional debating teams will be set up and I will be working with the Regional Chairman
to ensure that the under 18 age group will be encouraged to get involved. These
opportunities will be marketed to local schools through our contacts as a positive form for
engagement and enrichment.

Youth Parliament

There are a number of our core activists that are members of the UK Youth Parliament.
While MYP’s are politically neutral, the activism present in their key members would make an
excellent contribution to our organisation. If a member of CF is looking to get more involved
in the UKYP then we should be giving them the tools on which to develop their campaigns.
Of course we must refrain from such campaigns being overtly political. While the organisation
does receive a lot of negative press within Conservative circles, I feel that engaging with
organisations like the UKYP could provide important resources and opportunities to train CF
members and hopefully empower our future Cllr’s, PPC’s and MP’s.
Policy

The more CF activists within schools and colleges across the country the better chances are
we can influence the make up of school councils and alter the long term perspectives of
younger people. As a Party we must start to engage future generations. There are times
when I feel a little old, let along leaving policy decisions that affect younger people to those
that are old enough to be parents or grand parents.

We have an opportunity to become the party that represents the under 18 age bracket. I
would in particular like the ambassador to the Department of Education on the Conservative
Future Policy Forum to re-establish our political/policy connections with colleges and schools.

We also need to spend time with schools attacking the legacy of the Labour Party and their
failure with our schools. It will be great for the Government to have school students
themselves attacking the legacy that Labour have left for the country as these are the people
that experienced their failures first hand. Labour promised that standards would rise, that
teachers would be given the support they needed; and that every child would be given help to
succeed. CF will be given a brilliant structure through the CF National Policy Forum to
expose the failure of Labour and enable the channelling of such policy.

The coalition is currently working on the following key areas of policy and we can support
them in their aims by enabling CF to work with them, members will have an input on policy
and to hold them to account on these key policy objectives:
 Restore discipline and order to the classroom
 Raise the status of the teaching profession
 Raise standards
 Create a new generation of independently run state schools

Summary

CF has the opportunity to do something which we have tried to do before without a clear plan,
to encourage our membership to grow in the under 18 bracket and at the same time keep
them enthused and excited about CF and its influence over the National Coalition.

With some of the ideas that have been presented in this policy document, I hope you will see
that CF can reach out to this group and build upon our activist base.

I know that Sam Austrums has been passionately working very hard to get CF engaging with
more school and college students around the country, establishing a Facebook group with
nearly 100 members. Upon discussing the idea with several schools, they have shown an
interest in speakers representing Conservative Future going into schools and speaking to
pupils and making them aware of the easily accessible world of politics - hopefully becoming
an idea that can be used across schools in the whole the UK. I value his extensive support
and hope to organise a Schools and Colleges event in the near future to allow proactive
under 18’s in the Conservative Future to meet and discuss ways of expanding CF’s under 18
membership. If anyone would like to hear more about the strategy to encourage more under
18s to get involved please feel free to contact either myself or Sam on the Campaign for
Schools Campaign Group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133978733295859&ref=ts

Ben Howlett

Website: www.benhowlett.com
Email: ben@benhowlett.com
Mobile: 07800 863161
Twitter: @cllrbenhowlett