Teachers should be engaging in tough love and debate with pupils to combat extremism, security experts say.
A new report showed that encouraging youngsters to question radicalisation issues was more effective than telling children to treat each other nicely.
Researchers analysed more than 20 international education initiatives aimed at preventing violent extremism.
The paper by defence think tank Royal United Services Institute urged teachers not to shy away from challenging issues.
“Education initiatives can only address a limited range of concerns but, carefully designed, [they] can play a role to make students more resilient to radicalisation efforts,” Claudia Wallner, a terrorism and conflict researcher at the institute, said.
“We do have evidence from existing interventions that, if done right, certain approaches can make students aware of certain types of extremism and make them more resilient to recruitment and radicalisation.
“Education initiatives can be effective at targeting some extremism. Germany chose the approach to dealing with its own historical legacy by debating the government’s part in past human rights issues.
"It is relevant as many countries start to deal with their own racist history, like the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Improving the ability [of youngsters] to critically evaluate and see through world views and binary narrative by debating topics openly takes the power away from extremists.”
However, Ms Wallner said her analysis revealed that flawed initiatives could fuel hate.
“We also found poorly designed and managed interventions can create more harm than good and help radicalisation if specific groups are targeted by the intervention,” she said.
Prof Lynn Davies from the University of Birmingham specialises in how education can be used to combat extremism and said encouraging children to speak openly about topics built their "resilience and confidence".
“What doesn’t work in terms of trying to prevent extremism is just telling kids to love each other and to be nice or respect each other – that is not enough in building resilience,” she said.
“What doesn’t work is saying ‘do not say that’, ‘do not mention extremism’.
"You have to let children express everything, even if it is very uncomfortable. Let children question everything is the key message.”
Ms Davies, whose work has reached 83,000 pupils and teachers in 20 countries, she said it was important for teachers to be aware of current issues, such as the coronavirus pandemic and the so-called fake news extremists use in their radicalisation techniques.
“There are links between extremism, knife crime, grooming and racism,” she said.
“Someone might start in a violent gang and switch to religious extremism and it is understanding this trajectory. [Educators need to] look at how extremists are capitalising on current events like Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter and understand how current events get diverted into support for extremist movements.
“We speak to former extremists and they share how they went into movements and how they were misled in terms of what happened.”
Ms Davies said the most successful initiatives were delivered by people with "huge credibility" among youngsters, such as former extremists or youth workers.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
RESULTS
Welterweight
Tohir Zhuraev (TJK) beat Mostafa Radi (PAL)
(Unanimous points decision)
Catchweight 75kg
Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR) beat Leandro Martins (BRA)
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Manon Fiorot (FRA) beat Corinne Laframboise (CAN)
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Bogdan Kirilenko (UZB) beat Ahmed Al Darmaki
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Izzedine Al Derabani (JOR) beat Rey Nacionales (PHI)
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Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) v Alexandru Chitoran (ROU)
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Bruno Machado (BRA) beat Mike Santiago (USA)
(RSC round 2).
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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