An award-winning framework is bringing character education into the mainstream, embedding it across practice and policy.
Good character can be ‘caught’, ‘taught’ and ‘sought'.
Article by Adam Green, freelance journalist.
Championed for centuries, character development and virtues have long been viewed as central to human flourishing. Studies prove that character education can boost educational attainment, enhance job prospects, and improve young people’s mental health.
“The formation of character has always been a core purpose of education: it contributes to individual and societal flourishing,” argues Professor Tom Harrison, Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor in Education Innovation at the University of Birmingham, Director of Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, and contributor to the Centre’s Framework for Character Education in Schools.
In the years up to 2012 before the Jubilee Centre was founded, character education had largely fallen out of favour. Instead, education centred on narrower utilitarian and economic ends, following a more pervasive human capital agenda, which emphasises labour productivity and economic value above all. “This brings an overly linear perspective that jobs come from developing knowledge and understanding alone, which can be tested through exams and qualifications to pass through educational stages,” explains Professor Harrison. “Many schools had somewhat lost the understanding that they are not just educating children and young people for the world of work, but also in the wider aspects of their personal and social development.” This is despite research that shows that parents and teachers prioritise character over attainment. The 'parents and teachers' study has also been replicated across eight European countries with broadly similar results, due to be published this summer.
Ministers of Education and schools are, for their part, responding to incentives, such as rankings and assessments like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as established by the OECD. This measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills. “A lot of pressure came through policy, either nationally through the publication of league tables and Ofsted [the English school standards body] inspections or internationally through the OECD and the PISA testing of a narrow curriculum,” says Professor Harrison.
This focus on core subjects and national and international metrics was emphasised by education bodies, often encouraging a perspective that prioritised targets over personal development. “Before 2019, Ofsted inspections were perceived to be primarily interested in attainment metrics, because there was a widespread belief that an ‘outstanding’ inspection meant outstanding results. Other areas like personal development were secondary to that,” Professor Harrison explains.
The Centre defines character as a set of personal traits or dispositions that produce specific moral emotions, inform motivation, and guide conduct.
As a result, character education includes all explicit and implicit educational activities that help young people to develop positive personal strengths called virtues.
To reinvigorate character education in modern schooling, Professor James Arthur OBE founded the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues in 2012. The following year, the Centre published the first version of the Framework for Character Education in Schools to help educators develop a defined and holistic approach to character as something that can be ‘taught’, ‘caught’, and should be freely ‘sought’:
Taught: through the curriculum using teaching and learning strategies, activities, and resources.
Caught: through a positive school community, formational relationships, and a clear ethos.
Sought: through chosen experiences that occur within and outside of the formal curriculum.
In 2022, chosen from over 1,200 entries, the Framework won the prestigious overall QS Global Award for Education for its innovative and effective pedagogy, and for ‘achieving remarkable and scalable impact’ on a global stage.
The Framework for Character Education in Schools is used both locally and internationally to promote a positive, intentional and explicit approach to character education.
Rooted in a neo-Aristotelian model of moral life and development, the framework conceptualises virtues into four types: intellectual, moral, civic, and performance. These virtues are supported by the development of phronesis, also known as practical wisdom or ‘good sense’, which is the ability to navigate when virtues clash and find an appropriate – and morally good – path forwards. Good character is therefore about the application of virtues. “In this way, the Framework moves away from overly moralistic, indoctrinating, and paternalistic concerns around character virtues, because our argument is that character involves a freely chosen, agency centred developmental path for personal growth over time,” explains Professor Harrison.
Character education is not something extra on teachers’ plates. It’s the plate itself…If you start with that premise, then you don't see it as an add on. You see it is underpinning everything you do.
Introducing a new framework for education could be seen as challenging at a time when teacher burnout is high and over 70% of schools have seen real-term budget cuts since 2010. But Professor Harrison flips this narrative, noting that “character education is not something extra on teachers’ plates. It’s the plate itself…If you start with that premise, then you don't see it as an add on. You see it is underpinning everything you do.” An upcoming study conducted by the Centre using national Department for Education (DfE) Progress 8 [a performance measure which assesses progress from the end of primary school to the end of KS4] data will reveal that in schools that have been awarded a Quality Mark for their character education, students on average get half a GCSE grade higher on all subjects regardless of school type. To help teachers put the Framework into practice, the Centre has created, amongst hundreds of other free to download resources and other publications, the Character Teaching Inventory, providing over 70 character education teaching strategies.
The Centre is playing a central role in mainstreaming character education; the award-winning Framework has been sent to and downloaded by tens of thousands of schools around the world, has influenced the Ofsted inspection framework, and has been adopted by multiple universities.
The Framework has also attracted significant international interest: the Centre has worked with policy makers, academics and practitioners in over 100 countries, including at governmental Ministerial level, including most recently in Argentina, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Mexico, and Indonesia. The Centre’s research has been significantly cited in the new OECD framework Education for Human Flourishing, which is expected to influence future PISA testing.
The Framework's influence goes beyond traditional education settings. To give one example, America’s West Point Military Academy has used the framework to move from a rules-based to a character-based approach to ethics. Reflecting on the reason for this impact, Professor Harrison says “The Framework has provided a way to look at character education that is not a blueprint, but speaks to enough people from different backgrounds who understand how important character is. It is based on a very strong philosophical underpinning, and has enough in terms of practical evidence for people to think this is something that can really make a difference to how they educate children and young people.”
Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues launched the Global Character Alliance.
The Centre’s global outlook and emphasis on connection and coordination has impacted academia, education practice and policy development on every continent. The Centre has founded a UK Association for Character Education (ACE) and the European Character and Virtues Association (ECVA). In January 2026, the Centre also launched the Global Character Alliance (GCA), a network of networks promoting research, policy and practice in character education. GCA was launched with 30 founding members, the leading character education networks from all regions of the world.
The Jubilee Centre is also academic lead of the Global Innovations for Character Development (GICD) Platform, which offers capacity-building support to projects mainly in low and middle-income countries, funded by grants from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The Centre offers an award-winning Leading Character Education online CPD and runs the only distance learning Master of Arts in character education in the world.
And while labour market outcomes are not the primary aim of character education, Professor Harrison notes the value of these attributes in navigating the world of work. Virtues including phronesis are desired across professions, and the ability to develop virtues, and not solely technical skills, is essential to working life. “Employers want people who turn up, but they also want them to do the right thing, like get on with other people and show integrity. If you look at any employer studies of what they're prioritising, you'll see that character virtues, as defined by us, are emphasised strongly.”
Explore the Framework in full to learn more about the Centre's position on character education and how to put it into practice.
Looking ahead, the Centre is exploring links between character and personal development in the age of AI. “I think there's something particularly compelling there”, says Professor Harrison. Their recent research includes a focus on cultivating character virtues in 12-18 year olds to engage in the responsible use of AI, alongside the Centre’s dedicated research strand in character education in the digital age which focuses on ‘digital’ or ‘cyber-wisdom’. While today’s technology-saturated environment is beyond the imagination of Aristotle, the central place of character in navigating change and uncertainty remains.
Explore what character education research and practice looks like in an AI-shaped society.
Professor of Education and Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor: Education Innovation
Professor Harrison is internationally recognised for his research on character education, virtue ethics, and the ethical challenges of digital life.
