80% of MPs agree that developing a sense of moral values in young people is as important as attaining good exam results – New Jubilee Centre and ComRes survey shows
A recent study of 150 Members of Parliament has been undertaken by ComRes on behalf of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues to assess the views of MPs with regard to character and virtue education in schools, and within the world of work, and to establish a baseline for future research.
The survey results show a broad and firm support across all three major political parties for character education, with two-thirds of MPs surveyed agreeing that character education should be taught in schools and 80% of MPs surveyed agreeing that developing a sense of moral values is as important for school children as good GCSE and A-level results, with 30% indicating that they strongly agree.
65% agree that character education should be taught in schools, with 24% strongly agreeing.
MPs are more divided on whether young people are leaving school without a strong enough sense of moral values, with half of MPs (51%) agreeing and more than a third of MPs (37%) disagreeing.
In response to other questions, 6 out of 10 MPs agree that it is important that school teachers (61%) and those working in the medical (59%) and legal (56%) professions have had training in character education. Around a quarter disagree with the statement.
The full survey is available here.