In Australia, major multinational weapons companies have been interfering in STEM education in order to normalise their business, and create a ‘talent pipeline’ for the global arms industry. Now, the Australian government is getting in on the act.
The Welsh peace movement Cymdeithas y Cymod warns that there is little being done to balance recruitment to the armed forces and promotion of arms companies in schools in Wales — but this can be changed.
War School, a provocative film launched this week, is set to challenge the British government’s attempt to entice children into support for war.
Israel’s parliament has passed a law that could ban groups critical of the armed forces or the state from entering schools and speaking to students. The law by 43 votes to 24 in a move that its detractors say will stamp out free speech in the educational system.
There have been three remarkable breakthroughs in the last month regarding the media’s willingness to report and comment on the alarming process of the militarization of America’s high schools.
Within the first 23 days of 2018, there were 11 school shootings in the United States. In lieu of any serious discussion about gun control, there has been instead a proliferation of laws and bills that would arm teachers, and train them to be able to kill.
Sixth grade students in S. Korea are outfitted with child-sized body armor, helmets, and orange pistol-shaped BB guns. Resembling mini riot cops, the kids, divided into two teams, skip and giggle their way into the newly opened Sunshine Land Military Experience Center to play a live action war experience called ‘survival game.’ In these military experience centers, where tourism, gaming, and military experience coalesce, activists face an uphill battle in their struggle for peace-oriented education.
In the Czech Republic, since 2013 there has been a Ministry of Defence programme known as POKOS: “Preparing citizens to defend the state”. The main interest of the program is to publicize the activities of the Army.