to support the delivery of the curriculum particularly for those teachers who are new to Jersey. A website has been developed to
provide other relevant links for teachers and pupils and electronic versions of the resource pack. www.jeron.je/ projects/citizenship/index). As part of the citizenship
programme, all schools elect their own school council which gives them all practical experience of the electoral process from proposing and standing as candidates to voting using voting papers and ballot boxes. The youngest children explore their
local community. During primary school, the children
are introduced into how Jersey's parish system of local government works. In Year 5 (9 - 10 year-olds) they all visit the States Chamber and take part in a mock States sitting, with pupils participating in all the officer roles as well as acting as elected Members. In secondary school teaching about
government is expanded to include how the ministerial system and scrutiny work. Ministers and scrutiny Members go into schools and involve pupils in the process. In their sixth form years, young
people are encouraged to take part in the Youth Assembly and the standard of argument and debate has been compared favourably, sometimes said to even surpass, the real debates held in the States Chamber.
Reducing the voting age As well as enhancing its citizenship curriculum, Jersey has also taken another significant decision involving the engagement of young people in their community. In 2007, the decision was made to
lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Jersey is one of the first Commonwealth countries to lower the voting age in this way following on from the Isle of Man which did this in 2005. The new lower voting age will be in place for the elections which take place this autumn. The debate on lowering the voting
age was lively, with those against arguing young people are not mature enough at 16 to make such important decisions. But the majority sided with the view
18 The Parliamentarian 2008/Issue One - Jersey
that if young people wish to involve themselves in the electoral process at 16 they should be empowered to do so. So in Jersey more is being taught
about citizenship in schools and the voting age has been lowered to 16. Now we have to wait and see
whether this delivers the desired results
of increasing the percentage of people who feel engaged enough to go out and vote. Jersey does not want to face an increasing democratic deficit where the government is elected by a diminishing percentage of voters. Instead, we want voter participation to rise because people are interested and wish to vote.