SCOTTISH school pupils should be educated about the independence referendum now the vote has been extended to 16 and 17-year-olds, according to a leading parents' group.
The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said the referendum was a significant opportunity to engage young people and their families in the wider political debate.
Teaching unions have already called for resources and guidance to be made available to schools and colleges on a non-partisan and non-party political basis to help inform young people about the decision in 2014. However, former Scottish secretary Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said the issue had huge implications because it would "bring politics into our schools".
A statement from the SPTC said: "We believe the forthcoming referendum is a legitimate and indeed valuable learning opportunity with which our schools should engage in a meaningful way."
It has suggested a number of events to engage parents, including debates and topics for home discussion.
The statement came as ministers again rejected calls for prisoners to be given the vote in next year's independence referendum.
The LibDems, backed by the Scottish Greens, want prisoners serving four years or less to be allowed to vote.
Apart from the addition of 16 and 17-year-olds, the franchise for the referendum will be the same as for Holyrood and council elections.
MSPs last night backed the Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Bill by 97 to 12, with the Tories opposed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article