@askyourGran
Mr Bevan, from the article: "I am not sure the government should ever be in the business of dictating values that should be taught in schools"
Yes, teaching 'values' to pliant, impressionable children is what all dictators do. There's film of the Nazis doing it; Stalin, Mao, North Korea, North Vietnam and other regimes of that ilk do it (trickier to catch them at it, on camera), Pol Pot took a short cut and killed people who wore glasses, since you don't need education to be an agricultural labourer.
Strictly speaking, we only need to teach kids *how to learn*. Obviously they need one R to get information in, another R to get their ideas out, arithmetic to work put which of their ideas are profitable and perhaps another R - the ability to reason for themselves.
If our values have intrinsic merit, they will, by their own independent thought processes arrive back at our idea of what civilised life is like, no matter what forces attempt to perturb our way of life and no matter what course of events plays out, in future times.