Want to engage young people? Lower the voting age to 16 and build up citizenship education in schools

Last week Lucy Rigby won the “top of the policies” vote at Pragmatic Radicalism’s event at Labour party conference. The winning proposal tackled the question of how to engage young people in politics

Most people with even a vague knowledge of politics know that the way we do politics – in this country and others – is in deep, deep trouble.  Turnout, in every type of election, is low – which, amongst other things, raises all manner of questions about legitimacy.  People feel disengaged from politics, particularly young people.

You don’t need to be a canvassing enthusiast to be all too familiar with phrases such as “they’re all the same” and “voting doesn’t change anything”- that’s just the standard office view (on the few occasions politics is talked about).  There doesn’t seem to be much of an explicable connection between physically putting an ‘X’ in the box of a candidate in constituency Y, and the prime minister that appears on the television a day later.

In essence then, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the mechanics of our democracy is in crisis.  It’s the responsibility of our generation to solve it.

First then, let’s enfranchise 16 year olds.  Currently, a 16 year old can get married, fight for their country, pay income tax and national insurance and become a director of a company.  But they can’t vote.  That’s not fair and it doesn’t make any sense.  Let’s change it.

With regard to civic education, or ‘citizenship’, recent studies show that its teaching is patchy and uneven.  Really good schools tend to do it well, and of course middle class children often get it at home, but large numbers of pupils are leaving school without a decent understanding of the civic society in which they’ll live, including the political system and the importance of voting.

We should be making three 30 minute lessons a week compulsory and examinable, from the age of 11 to 16.  Pupils should learn about, for example, the history of political representation in Britain and the various philosophies of the ‘social contract’.  There was recently a rumour that Michael Gove might be about the scrap the teaching of ‘citizenship’ altogether.  We need to do the polar opposite – we ought to be beefing it up.

Lastly, on the assumption that 16 year olds are enfranchised, it should be the responsibility of the school to register their pupil to vote.  The current government have introduced individual voter registration, which will mean that in a couple of years, it’ll become the sole responsibility of each individual young person to register themselves to vote.

Instead, why don’t we link the right to vote (or the responsibility, depending on how you see it) with education and with the citizenship curriculum?  It would doubtlessly mean more young people on the register than if the responsibility is left only to them and – I’d hope – more young people voting.

I’d actually add one more limb to the above, which I read recently in Andrew Adonis’ book, ‘Education, education, education’ – that’s a polling station in every secondary school on election day.

So there you go – a few ideas that I would hope would go some way to addressing our broken politics.  Of course, there’s lots, lots more we ought to be doing as well.  Personally, I wouldn’t shy away from examining the case for incentivising voting (or even making it compulsory) and electronic voting.

But it’s not just about the mechanics of voting, we also need to recognise that identification with political parties is low and that they might not now be the most effective prism through which to present ideas. We also need to take into account that many can make themselves heard and affect change other than via traditional politics, in a much quicker and more effective way than voting.  Lots to consider…

Lucy Rigby is Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Lincoln


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8 Responses to “Want to engage young people? Lower the voting age to 16 and build up citizenship education in schools”

  1. swatantra says:

    The problem is that : Currently, a 16 year old can get married, fight for their country, pay income tax and national insurance and become a director of a company. But they can’t vote.’
    If we raised the Age of Majority back up to 21, then we wouldn’t get this problem.
    No one under the age of 21 shoud be dying for their country in a foreign field.
    No one of the age of 16 should be even considering marrying. No one of 18 should be driving, or smoking or drinking. They are simply not mature enough.
    A 16 year old is still a child, despite what Lucy Rigby says. Let them enjoy that childhood while they can and lets not thrust adulthood on them before they are ready for it at 21. I am wholly opposed to votes at 16.
    The point about Citizenship though is an excellent one, and we need to bring that back into the curriculum and educate out youngsters to be good citizens.

  2. Nick says:

    Yep. And when they get to 16 send them the bill for the debts you’ve run up.

    Imagine that, just turned 16 and you get a bill for quarter of a million (with interest on top)

    They are going to love you – not.

    After all, you wouldn’t lie to them like you’ve lied to us

  3. Nick says:

    The point about Citizenship though is an excellent one, and we need to bring that back into the curriculum and educate out youngsters to be good citizens.
    =========

    They already learned the lesson. Cheat lie, collect your expenses. …

  4. John P Reid says:

    When I was 16 in 1990 ,I was busy throwing rocks at Cops during the Poll tax riots, I thought the public were mad to vote Tory, i was too young to make a decent political opinion, And when I voted 2 years alter I couldn’t understand why labour lost, i was too young to recall that Kinnock hadn’t distanced himself enough From the Miners trike or Livingstone inviting with open arms the IRA to county hall, something that cost labour millions of votes, I don’t support votes at 16 As i was too young in 1990 at that age to make a decent political opinion,

  5. JJ says:

    So You want to go after the ‘born yesterday’ vote, makes sense.

  6. uglyfatbloke says:

    I’m opposed to votes at 16, but fair’s fair…if they don’t get to vote then they should n’t pay tax.
    It’s bad enough that we have lower pay-rates for certain age groups…do thing cost less in the shops because you are 17 rather than 37?

  7. aragon says:

    The flaw in the argument is that politicians ‘are’ all the same, the same backgrounds, same policies, same influences etc.

    Also children will be staying at school until 18.

    What we need is not civics classes but real political choice, not more sons (and daughters) of the rich, who are too thick to go into banking.

  8. uglyfatbloke says:

    Aragon; are you really suggesting that rich people from privileged backgrounds don’t understand the issues that affect the rest of us? Oh… wait a minute….yeah, you’re probably right.

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