Roehampton first to teach citizenship to freshers

Academics are to prepare student courses on citizenship in a groundbreaking project at Roehampton University.

More than 20 staff at Roehampton will attend workshops to learn how to present the subject to up to 500 first-year undergraduates from September.

If the classes are a success, all Roehampton undergraduates will be required to complete the 12-week module, which has 24 hours of contact time. Roehampton said the classes, which were intended to give students extra knowledge that would improve their career prospects, were in no way evidence that universities are becoming more like schools, where citizenship is taught as part of the national curriculum.

The citizenship syllabus covers topics such as asylum, immigration and human rights. It will be adapted to different subjects so that drama students, say, can incorporate the issues into improvisation classes.

The initiative, the first of its kind in a UK university, has been funded by a grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

David Woodman, who is director of the project, said: "At the heart of this module is the value of participation and engagement in the module and in civic life. The encouragement of volunteering will run throughout.

Employers are increasingly concerned about issues such as ethics and corporate social responsibility."

So far, 15 of the 76 subjects offered by the university will incorporate the module.

Mike Shattock, visiting professor at the School of Lifelong Education and International Development at the Institute of Education, said: "This could be universities becoming like schools if the module is taught to a low level, descriptively and non-analytically. If it is taught from an analytical, social science-based perspective, then it could be very admirable."