HOME SECRETARY and Blackburn MP Jack Straw has launched a moral crusade to create a new generation of "good citizens."

Mr Straw has told schools they must not neglect the need to teach children to be good people in their quest to achieve better exam results, which are published in league tables annually.

He told a conference on good parenting, in his capacity as head of a ministerial group for the family, that "teaching the young what is expected of them is crucial."

"The way children turn out as adults can be influenced by what is, or isn't, taught to them at school," he said.

"Pupils should be encouraged to work voluntarily in the community to instill a sense of purpose and importance into them. By working on community projects, they could soon see the benefits of their work."

He added that it was not just primary schools which could play a key role.

"As a government, we want to enure that lessons in citizenship had a place on the National Curriculum and that secondary schools teach pupils about the responsibilities of parenthood."

But Frank Shuttleworth, president of the Blackburn branch of the National Union of Teachers, said such initiatives didn't need spelling out.

He said: "Schools are often the last bastion of standards and the government could do with improving society.

"Children are products of society, and there is only so much schools can do. Primary schools especially follow what is known as "the hidden curriculum" in which manners, behaviour and what is right and wrong is spelt out to them."

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