Young people and politics. The eternal issue.
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 4:07pm
4 responses
In a few minutes I’m going over to take part in a panel debate with the South Wales Forum of the European Youth Parliament. Other AMs will be on the panel too, at least that’s what the usual format is.
Now, I love speaking to young people about politics. I hope I can enthuse them to a certain degree to get involved in politics though I’m not stupid enough to think that any one individual can turnaround a mass of young people who currently do not vote, and who feel alienated from political processes through no fault of their own.
But to be devil’s advocate, these panel sessions alone won’t inspire people to get out there and change the World. I go in to schools and Universities, of course, but again, these are usually panel discussions, and it is hard to sustain communication with the school children or the students following said event unless a few conscientious people email me for help, or come and do work experience with me.
Essentially what I’m hinting at is that politics needs to be embedded in to everything we do with young people. Yes, they do studyelements of politics during PSE lessons and in the Welsh Bacc, but on an anecdotal level, this isn’t always prioritised or well structured, and teachers, through no fault of their own are often not trained sufficiently to teach such subjects during the PSE time allocation.
Yes, AMs go in to schools and people study politics at A level, but we still haven’t arrived in being able to encourage people to a) vote or to b) get involved themselves. What will it take, I hear you ask? Well, as I’ve harped on about for a while, I think we need to set up a new Youth Parliament for Wales that will feed directly in to the workings of the National Assembly for Wales.
When I mentioned this idea at a recent event( which is supported by numerous organisations by the by), Kirsty Williams dismissed this idea as more process.
But I beg to differ. Funky Dragon is a youth organisation, but it is a charity, and informs the Welsh Government and its work. Reperesentatives from Funky Dragon tell me that it is difficult for them to get involved in politics in other ways, other than to inform Government policies and strategies due to their charity sector status.
I don’t for a minute wish to undermine this work, but what I will say is that the Assembly’s Commission should seriously consider setting up a Youth Parliament for Wales that can meet on a regular basis, that can take part in Assembly businesses in a constructive and meaningful way, without fearing that they will be too political or whether they will annoy Government Ministers.
With the newish Youth Chamber in the old Assembly chamber now up and running, with schools and youth forums using it on a regular basis, now is the time to start thinking about how a Youth Parliament could work in practise. If there’s anyone out there who wants to help with this, and I know you are out there, then please get in touch. At the end of the day, these young people are the future leaders, and if they don’t vote and become passionate about politics now, what’s to say they ever will?
