Invitation of Members of Parliament to School Events

3 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Education (Schools) whether there are any Ministry rules, directives or operating principles that prohibit primary or secondary schools from inviting Members of Parliament (MPs) from any party, or Nominated MPs, as speakers at events.

The Senior Minister of State for Education (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Education): Mr Speaker, our schools are places of learning that cannot be used as platforms for partisan politics. Schools do not invite or accede to requests by any Member of Parliament (MP) or political party to speak at school events.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.

Mr Leon Perera (Non-Constituency Member): Mr Speaker, Sir, just one supplementary question to the Senior Minister of State. Is it the case that all MPs cannot speak at schools and that it includes officeholders, Ministers and so on and so forth?

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Schools are to be kept free of partisan politics, so people should not be speaking in their capacity as a member of a political party attending a school for an event.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leon Perera.

Mr Leon Perera: I would take it that Ministers and officeholders of the Government can speak at schools and I believe that is the case. Would the Senior Minister of State not acknowledge that if Ministers and officeholders of the Government can enter schools and speak and personally engage with students, but members of other parties represented in Parliament or Nominated MPs are not allowed to speak and directly engage with students in the same way, would that not have a detrimental effect in two regards: one, the access that students have to both sides of the political debate so that they can develop into citizens who can exercise some judgement on political questions; and secondly, also in terms of the capacity of the students to develop their critical faculty and to see both sides of a question? Would not that one-sidedness be detrimental in that regard?

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Perera for providing some clarity over and above his initial Parliamentary Question, that what he is hoping for is for MPs to attend and speak at school events in their political capacity. This is not appropriate. Schools are to be kept free of partisan politics.

The framing that the Member made in the supplementary question suggests that, actually, the intention is for him or whoever he is speaking on behalf of, his party, to attend and represent political views. The words he used were "political debate". This is not the intention of what we do in schools.

If the Member would like to make a case as to why there should be partisan politics in schools, then I think that is the case that he should make. We take the view that partisan politics should be kept out of schools.