We welcome the government’s commitment to strengthening the integrity of elections and encourage wide participation in the democratic process. Our 2021 report with the University of Sheffield’s Professor James Weinberg, “The Missing Link,” showed that political literacy education is worryingly inconsistent in UK schools, with less than 1% of teachers surveyed feeling equipped to deliver this vital work.
To truly strengthen the integrity of elections and encourage wide participation, we all must amplify democracy by ensuring all citizens understand how their democracy functions through political literacy, are inoculated from disinformation and misinformation through media literacy and are given a chance to have a say in how their country is run.
We, at Shout Out UK (SOUK), have been committed since our founding to strengthening our democracy. We call on the government to continue their efforts to safeguard British democracy by ensuring that political and media literacy education is available to everyone, regardless of their socio-economic background, ethnicity, or gender.
‘The government’s mention of strengthening the integrity of elections and encouraging wider participation is a welcome first step. Now we need a solid plan to embed Political and Media Literacy into schooling and all aspects of life. Until every eligible voter is given the tools to understand how their democracy works and how to identify disinformation for themselves, extreme views and conspiracy theories will continue to grow, and democracy will suffer.’ – Matteo Bergamini, CEO, Shout Out UK
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