Why we're failing our children

When I was 16 I made a decision which changed my life forever.

I decided to study politics.

I didn't know anything about politics. At all. I didn't understand our system at all. I didn't understand elections at all. I didn't know any of the political parties in this country's views or policies. I knew my Dad voted for the Tories and if it wasn't for that one crazy, impulsive decision I made back when I was 16 I would probably be voting Tory as well. What a scary thought.

Then all of a sudden in a year my eyes were opened. I realised that what I thought was a democracy is actually a joke. I learned that the way we elect our leaders means that they don't have as much legitimacy as they should and I was shown ways that this could be changed so that everyone received fairer representation. It was suddenly clear that the three main parties in this country are all, apart from a few small things, exactly the same. My teachers didn't push me to feel this way- in fact they were very neutral. They showed us the facts and we drew up our own conclusions.

I can promise you, most of the people in my class felt the same way.

Why is it that I only learned about politics when I went to college and chose to? I think this is one of the biggest failings in this country. at school we get taught how to solve long equations, recite Shakespeare and even how to put on a condom but we don't get taught how to vote. We don't get given even the most basic understanding of our political system and the parties within it.

Recently me and a friend from my course had an assignment to go out and ask the general public a question on a subject of our choice. We chose lowering the voting age to 16. We asked a few students from our uni and do you know what many of them said? 'I'm 18 and I don't know who to vote for' that or 'oh, I don't really have an opinion on that'. Democracy in action people.

Maybe the government hasn't made teaching politics in school mandatory yet because they don't want the UK's teenagers to know how undemocratic and one sided our political system is. They would rather they just voted how their parents vote. No questions asked.

This country would become a so much more ideologically vibrant place if only we showed our young people that there is more than just one way to think and to see the world.