There is a meeting on this issue with US and UK activists on Wednesday 13 July, 7pm, Friends House, 173 Euston Rd, London.

The UK armed forces visit thousands of schools each year. They offer school presentation teams, youth teams, ‘careers advisors' and lessons plans. The Government has recently indicated that there will be an expansion of cadet forces within state schools to encourage the military ‘spirit' and that ex-soldiers will mentor youngsters in schools.

While there are claims that school involvement is not about recruiting young people, the Ministry of Defence has itself stated that visits to educational establishments are a "powerful tool for facilitating recruitment". In having contact with young people, the military aim to sow seeds in impressionable young minds. In 2007, the head of the Army's recruitment strategy said, "Our new model is about raising awareness, and that takes a ten-year span. It starts with a seven-year-old boy seeing a parachutist at an air show and thinking, 'That looks great.' From then the army is trying to build interest by drip, drip, drip."

Increasing military activities within schools and colleges is only one part of a sophisticated strategy of connecting young people with the armed forces. Schools should not be a channel through which a biased view of military life and activities can be fed to children. The forces, as an institution working to a long-term agenda, should not have the opportunity to gain influence with the provision of resources and activities.

Some in schools will be exposed to more extensive contact through the Combined Cadet Force which operates in over 250 schools in the UK. While many see the cadets offering discipline and excitement, they can draw youngsters struggling with academic subjects to a more exciting arena for personal achievement and belonging without a balanced understanding of the risks and obligations of military life.

The extension of military engagement with young people is being formulated in an increasingly militaristic climate. In the past few years a whole range of initiatives to give the military, and the conflicts in which it is currently involved, a positive image - from the annual razzmatazz of Armed Forces Day to companies raising money for ‘our heroes'. The forces are equally well aware that access to schools and colleges also gives them the ability to imprint an acceptance of military activity on the next generation of ‘opinion formers'. Without providing a challenge to this, we are failing these children; as society is seen to be increasingly accepting of a militaristic approach, it is difficult for young people to access information and alternative views that they need to make informed decisions about joining up.

Teachers unions in England and Scotland have questioned or called for a ban on army presentation teams in schools and colleges and students have themselves been able to resist military presentations. But if schools are going to face further institutionalised militarism, with more cadet forces and ex soldiers encouraged to become teachers and mentors, resistance must become more visible. Those taking on these issues in individual schools need to know that there is a community out there who support them.

ForcesWatch's new Military Out Of Schools campaign aims to take the argument that educational institutions are no place for the military into the public arena and to question assumptions that engagement with armed forces at a young age is benign. Additionally, we will provide materials to support those challenging military presence in their schools or provide a more balanced view of what life in the armed forces involves be given to young people.

ForcesWatch, which raises awareness and campaigns on issues of ethical concern and the armed forces, is bringing U.S. speaker Oskar Castro to speak at meetings to look at initiatives to tackle military involvement in public education in the U.S. and what can be learned for challenging the presence of the armed forces in U.K. schools and colleges. Oskar is Director of the US organisation, Military Families Speak Out and was previously Coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee's Youth and Militarism Program, which seeks to reduce the influence of the military in schools, to provide young people with alternatives to military service and to empower them to become peacemakers within their communities.

www.forceswatch.net