Section 3: Effective education for citizenship in practice
3.1 An entitlement for all
All young people should have opportunities to develop and deploy their capability for active and responsible citizenship in ways appropriate to their needs and maturity. This entitlement is established as one of the national priorities for education. This section examines ways in which the entitlement to education for citizenship can be realised effectively in schools and early education settings. The approach proposed does not involve the creation of a new subject labelled 'citizenship education' - or the adaptation of any single existing area of the curriculum for this purpose. Instead, Council takes the view that each young person's entitlement to education for citizenship can be secured through combinations of learning experiences set in the daily life of the school, discrete areas of the curriculum, cross-curricular experiences and activities involving links with the local community. To be fully effective, these learning experiences need to be located in communities where all recognise that they have something to learn, and that they have an entitlement to have their opinions heard.