Former Downing Street Adviser: Woke Ideology Infesting Classrooms and Pushing Teachers Out

Education campaigner Chris McGovern blames adults for child gender confusion

Chris McGovern speaks to presenter Lee Hall for the "British Thought Leaders" programme on NTD. NTD

Woke ideology is “infesting” British classrooms and leading to teachers leaving their jobs, a leading education campaigner has said.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, put the blame for growing gender identity issues within the school system on adults who “foist” their own anxieties onto children.

In an interview on NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” (BTL) programme, Mr. McGovern said: “Children see things fairly simply. They believe in goblins and witches, and fairies and giants and ogres, and they don’t have issues about gender identity—that’s for adults.

“And the problem we have in schools is that too often adults foist their anxieties onto children.

“Leave the children alone.”

Speaking on BTL, the retired head teacher and former Downing Street advisor, described gender ideology within schools as a “minefield”—and said the government “don’t know how to handle it.”

“They are supposed to be offering advice or providing advice, for example, on how to deal with trans pupils, that’s been delayed yet again,” he said.

“So schools really don’t know what to do there. It is a quagmire and I sympathise because most teachers actually—and I’ve taught for a long time—most teachers do actually want to teach their subject.

“And they get put off by all the woke ideology, which is now infesting our classrooms.

“And of course, a large number of leaving, in some areas 40 percent within five years.”

Identifying as a Moon

Likening trans and other gender ideologies to a “religion,” the education campaigner said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should not only focus on improving math in schools, but also the teaching of biology.

“We have situations now where children are deciding that they will identify with the opposite sex or they’re identifying with a cat—I heard one case with the moon.

“And teachers are castigating and criticising children who don’t support the child who’s trying to identify with something else.

“You know, the prime minister has talked a lot about the importance of mathematics in schools […] but he should talk about the importance of biology as well, because a lot of children need to understand that there are two sexes.”

Mr. McGovern said it’s important to understand children may feel more feminine or masculine.

He said: “As a head teacher I always told my children, they must treat other people as they wish to be treated.

“That’s it. That’s all there is all you need to know. But once you get children saying, well, I’m transitioning to a boy, but I’m a girl or the other way around, that causes huge confusion. The government needs to clarify the situation.”

He added that the “quagmire” of woke ideology was putting people off from following teaching careers at a time when the profession needs its status raised.

“We need to focus more on what schools should be able to do, which is to teach academic subjects and sports and music and drama and so forth,” he told BTL.

“They need to avoid what is an ideological semi-religious crusade, which is currently taking hold, there is some resistance to that. And the people who resist it do need to be supported.”

Parents protest Fairfax County Public Schools’ latest pro-transgender push in school policies outside of the county school board meeting in Falls Church, Va., on May 26, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Economic Disaster

The former Downing Street education advisor also raised concerns over the current state of education in the UK and what it meant for the future economy.

“So we as a country, our educational performance is nowhere near as good as our economic performance,” Mr. McGovern said.

“And that spells disaster for the future, because your educational performance will be your economic performance in 20 years’ time. That’s just a fact.

“And so we have to sort that out. And I’m not sure we’re going about it particularly well.”

Speaking about his own journey through education, Mr. McGovern told how he failed the now Eleven-Plus exam in primary school before attending a secondary model school for two years.

However, he believes the exam, which has been phased out in many UK areas, is “a lot fairer” than the current school system.

“The current system is that if you can buy a house in the catchment area of a good state school, then your child can get into the school,” he said.

“According to the Social Mobility Unit, which is a government organisation, you’re 25 times more likely to go to a good school if you live in a good area and the failing schools are 25 times more likely to be in poor areas.

“So these days we talk a lot about privilege and about and about advantage what the real advantage is not between say private schools and state schools, it’s between state schools and you have good schools and the demand is very high.”

The campaigner said Britain needed to get away from the “snobbery” of academic schools.

“The Eleven-Plus is not great, but it’s better than the alternative, which is selection by postcode.

“That’s unfair, and it’s grossly unfair.”