The Scottish government makes history by launching the first LGBTQ+ education platform into the school curriculum through its new website, providing an accessible tool to promote an inclusive school environment.
The website includes e-learning courses, lesson plans and tools aimed at teachers and parents to help create a safe environment for students.
The course content ranges from primary age, which discusses role models with interactive worksheets—progressing to a secondary school level where they discuss historical events such as Section 28 and the rise of Harvey Milk, defining moments that have impacted the lives of LGBTQ+ people today.
These resources were implemented as a result of recent findings on a poll that revealed the increasingly high level of homophobia within the Scottish school system.
“69.1% of all LGBT respondents had experienced homophobic or bi-phobic bullying in
school.”More than half of those who had experienced homophobic and bi-phobic bullying
Hate Crime Scotland.org
believed that it had negatively impacted on their education, rising to more than 88% of
those who had experienced transphobic bullying”
The Time for Inclusive Education Campaign (TIE) has supported this progression in full.
They hope that the integration of representation of the LGBTQ+ community aims to create a reference point for young people to look to, gaining a better understanding of all people; which will hopefully reduce the rate of homophobia within schools.
The co-founder of the charity Jordan Daly expressed
“This new website, and the supporting resources, which have been co-developed with teachers across Scotland, will support teachers to take a proactive, educational approach to tackling prejudice”
“Most importantly, this work will empower young people and provide them with an opportunity I didn’t have at school – to feel valued, confident, and proud of who they are.”
Jordan Daly
This addition to the curriculum will make this measure mandatory to be taught within schools.
However, there has been little to no information on how extensive this information should be taught within schools.
Therefore, this could add unnecessary confusion and can lead to an inconsistent education across Scotland; resulting in the measure failing to fulfil its full potential.
Featured Image Credit: The Scotsman
