Arms companies promoting brands in UK schools

Some of the world’s biggest arms companies are spending millions of pounds a year promoting their brands in British schools, new research has revealed.

A study by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has found that weapons manufacturers such as BAE Systems and Raytheon sponsor school events, fund competitions and provide teaching material.

Arms companies, who make billions supplying weapons to countries around the world including those with dubious human rights records, argue their involvement in schools is vital for the UK to produce a future generations of engineers.

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BAE Systems, whose fighter jets are currently being used by Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen, visited 420 schools across the country last year and is said to have 845 UK “ambassadors” comprised mainly of school governors.

“But critics say the funding is an attempt to normalise weapons manufacturing and, by extension, war,” reports The Independent.

One arms manufacturer developed a missile simulator for children to play with, while another provided classroom workshops to encourage children to think how camouflage could prove advantageous on the battlefield.

Some of these activities are aimed at children as young as four says CAAT.

CAAT’s Andrew Smith told the Independent that the presence of arms firms in schools was “entirely immoral and entirely inappropriate”.

“Arms companies aren’t spending money in schools because they care about education or young people. They are doing it because they want to improve their reputations and normalise what they do,” he said.

“These are companies who profit from war, conflict, death and destruction on a global scale – but when they are promoting themselves to children they are not talking about the deadly impact their weapons have or the terrible consequences they sow.