Thom Brooks has examined the UK citizenship test and finds that it is highly irrelevant to living in this society, has many inconsistencies, and suffers from serious gender imbalance. To make matters worse, changes to the test this year have transformed it from being a practical trivia quiz to being purely trivial. Greater care needs to be taken to ensure balance and consistency, and it is worth reconsidering the purpose of the test

Brooks, Thom

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LSE Research Online

demo crat icaudit .co m http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=1125(Cre d it: David  Hawg o o d , CC BY SA 2.0)By Democratic AuditA Barrier or Bridge? Serious problems revealed in the UKcitizenship testThom Brooks has examined the UK citizenship test and finds that it is highly irrelevant to living in this society,has many inconsistencies, and suffers from serious gender imbalance. To make matters worse, changes tothe test this year have transformed it from being a practical trivia quiz to being purely trivial. Greater careneeds to be taken to ensure balance and consistency, and it is worth reconsidering the purpose of the test.The Life in the UnitedKingdom cit izenship test hasbecome an integral part ofBrit ish immigration policy. Onemillion tests have been takensince its launch in 2005. About150,000 people sat the testlast year. Passing the test is arequirement f or permanentresidency and cit izenship.Alternatively, a short course,English f or Speakers of  OtherLanguages with Citizenship,may be completed although thiscan take much longer and ismore expensive. The Life in theUK test takes 45 minutes and ithas 24 questions. Applicantsmust answer 18 or morecorrectly to pass.I published the only comprehensive report into the test and its uses f or immigration policy in June. Thereport launch was held in Durham Castle and uploaded on YouTube. My f indings were covered in over 275newspapers and media outlets across the UK and internationally, including Comedy Central and Mock theWeek. However, my report was no laughing matter f or the government as I revealed the test to beimpractical, inconsistent and contain signif icant gender imbalance rendering it ‘unf it f or purpose’ and like ‘abad pub quiz’.The Life in the UK test has always included what many of  us might consider trivia. Inf ormation such as thenumber of  MPs in the House of  Commons or how to claim a National Insurance number is not probablyknown by most Brit ish cit izens. But the test has gone f rom a test about practical trivia to the purely trivial.Inf ormation about how to contact an ambulance, how to report a crime or how to register with a GP hasbeen removed. Instead, applicants are required to know the year that the Emperor Claudius invaded Britain,the approximate age of  Big Ben’s clock and the height of  the London Eye in f eet and meters. Consider thef ollowing dates in the lif e of  Sake Dean Mahomet that must be memorized by rote: birth (1759), f irst cameto the UK (1782), eloped to Ireland (1786), opened f irst curry house (1810) and death (1851). Furthermore,it must be known that he married a woman f rom Ireland named Jane Daly, that his curry house was calledthe Hindoostane Cof f ee House and it was established on George Street in London. The test has neverincluded so much impractical inf ormation bef ore – and the new handbook has about 3,000 f acts to bememorized. And remember: only 24 will be covered on the test.Curiously f or a handbook written and approved by polit icians, the number of  MPs has always been a bit ofa problem. The f irst edit ion was published in late 2004 and stated there were 645 MPs. This was untrue:there were 646. So why this mistake? The best explanation I f ound f or this was that only 645constituencies were contested in the 2005 General Election. This was because a candidate in the 646thconstituency – Staf f ordshire South – had died and so that election was postponed. But there were still 646(and not 645) MPs. In 2007, the second edition of  the test handbook was published. This t ime thegovernment conf irmed the correct number of  646. However, this soon changed to 650 MPs and this changewas never incorporated on the test. It was the case – when I sat the test in 2009 – that the ‘correct’ answerto this and many other questions were f actually untrue.The new handbook published this year has solved this problem through omission. Applicants are no longerrequired to know how many MPs sit in Westminster. Many of  us might think this a welcome change: af ter all,if  MPs have been conf used about this, why expect the Brit ish public to do any better? And why should thisinf ormation be a requirement f or cit izenship anyway? Nevertheless, all applicants are still required to knowthe number of  elected representatives in the Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Northern IrelandAssembly.The inconsistencies do not end there. Various courts f rom youth courts and beyond are mentioned, but theUK Supreme Court is lef t out. Another inconsistency concerns telephone numbers. It may be hard tobelieve, but the new test handbook requires applicants to memorize telephone numbers. There are f ive toknow and none are 999 or 111. The f ive include the National Domestic Violence Helpline and the HMRCself -assessment helpline. The f inal three are the f ront of f ices of  the House of  Commons, the WelshAssembly and the Scottish Parliament – omitt ing (f orgetting?) the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont inBelf ast.The Life in the UK test suf f ers f rom serious gender imbalance. For example, the new test includes asubstantial chapter about Brit ish history. This chapter lists the dates of  birth f or about 30 men, but onlyf our women. Neither of  the Queen’s birthdays is included. No women artists are mentioned: we are requiredto know Damien Hirst won the Turner Prize, but not Tracey Emin. No women musicians or singers arenoted. No women poets have any lines f or memorizing among the several scattered throughout thehandbook. No women are included in a long list of  f amous scientists and inventors. Nor are these the onlystrange omissions: L. S. Lowry is lef t out and there are no lines included by Robert Burns.Nor does this gender imbalance appear to be a simple oversight. A Home Of f ice announcement on the daythe new test launched commented on how the test now includes a chapter about Brit ish history. The HomeOf f ice announcement states the importance f or immigrants to know the achievements of  the people whohave shaped Britain – naming 9 men and no women.My report provides 12 recommendations f or how the test can be ref ormed and avoid these problems inf uture. These include the need f or greater care to be taken to ensure greater balance and consistency. Ialso recommend the need f or a public consultation. This is now long overdue. There has been no suchconsultation since the test was launched in 2005. The test has now undergone three editions with onemillion tests sat. It is high time some ef f ort was made to re-examine whether the test has lived up to itspromise and how it might be f urther improved. Any such consultation must include engagement with peoplelike me – immigrants to Britain who have sat the test. It is shocking that no public ef f ort has made toconsult with those who have sat the test and become Brit ish cit izens. Many of  the mistakes we can f ind inthe test might have been avoided if  ministers had experienced immigration f irst-hand and sat similar tests.Finally, it is worth reconsidering the purpose of  the test. One model is a barrier where the test serves as anobstacle to cit izenship. A second model is a bridge where it is more of  a f ormality conf irming commonmembership. Should the test be a barrier or a bridge? For the moment, it is neither f ish nor f owl or platypus.To best ref orm the test, we must ask what purpose we want it to serve. I believe a sensible discussionabout this is possible and the posit ive, widespread coverage of  my report gives me hope f or the f uture. Ifwe wait any longer, the test’s problems will only exacerbate. The time to act is now.Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of Democratic Audit, the British Politics andPolicy blog (on which it originally appeared), nor of the London School of Economics. Please readour comments policy before posting.About the AuthorThom Brooks is Reader in Law at Durham Law School arriving in 2012. He is an Associatein Philosophy with links to research centres in law, government and philosophy,including Centre f or Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Centre f or Ethics, Law and Lif eSciences, Centre f or the History of  Polit ical Thought, Gender and Law at Durham, HumanRights Centre and the Scottish Centre f or Crime and Justice Research. Brooks has heldvisit ing appointments at St John’s College, Oxf ord; St Andrews and Uppsala and he taughtpreviously at Newcastle. He is an Academician of  the Academy of  Social Sciences, Fellow ofthe Royal Historical Society and Fellow of  the Royal Society of  Arts. Brooks is the f oundingeditor of  the Journal of Moral Philosophy.

A barrier or bridge? Serious problems revealed in the UK citizenship test

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