Government publishes anti-terror guidance for colleges

Learning Together to Be Safe advises colleges on how to promote mutual respect and understanding among students while encouraging debate around the social challenges posed by the threat of extremism.

Skills Secretary John Denham said: "Colleges are at the heart of communities, not just as education providers, but as centres that encourage participation and promote tolerance and understanding. By fostering these values colleges can help communities develop resilience to those ideologies that promote hatred and violence, and support vulnerable students who may be at risk."

The guidance particularly focuses on al-Qaida-influenced terrorism, which the government perceives to be the main terrorist threat to the UK at present. Government officials claim that organisations linked to al-Qaida have actively sought to influence and recruit people into violent extremism through targeting learners in college.