Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has issued a stark warning that a sharp decline in children's reading could leave them vulnerable to sophisticated Russian disinformation campaigns, posing a direct threat to national security.
A National Security Threat from Plummeting Literacy
In a significant intervention, the Education Secretary stated that plummeting reading rates among youngsters could have an "impact on our security as a country". She highlighted that hostile foreign states are using increasingly advanced methods on social media to spread false information.
Writing in the Telegraph, Ms Phillipson explained that the UK must foster a "generation of critical thinkers" capable of discerning truth from sophisticated online falsehoods. She pointed to warnings from the new head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, in December about the growing threat from Russia and other foreign state actors.
The Sophisticated Frontier of Online Disinformation
Phillipson described a "dark new frontier" where disinformation is spread across the internet. These threats are now designed with high production values to mimic legitimate news sources, making them harder for the untrained eye to identify.
"To respond, we need a generation of problem solvers, equipped to dissect what lands in front of them, to value the truth and to reject the easy temptations of the online world," she wrote. "In short, we need a generation of readers."
Launching a National Year of Reading for 2026
To combat this crisis, the Department for Education has partnered with the National Literacy Trust to launch a UK-wide campaign, designating 2026 as the national year of reading. The initiative aims to reverse a worrying trend: data from the trust shows the proportion of children who enjoy reading has fallen from around half 20 years ago to just one third today.
This push follows Phillipson's announcement last year of plans to introduce a new Year 8 reading test. However, this policy has faced criticism from teaching unions. Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), argued that "more mandatory tests are not the answer."
The security context underscores the urgency. The UK is confronting what officials describe as a "tsunami" of disinformation and propaganda aimed at destabilising society and eroding trust in institutions. MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli recently stated the "front line is everywhere", pledging to tackle emerging threats with officers as fluent in technology, like the Python programming language, as they are in human intelligence.
