In some schools where I live, children are made to sing the national anthem

In some schools where I live, children are made to sing the national anthem

In some schools where I live, children are made to sing the national anthem every morning at school. Children who do not wish to do so can opt-out, in which case they are made to take their chairs outside the classroom, sit, and wait until the singing is over. Those working for the education board claim that the possibility of opting out means that nobody is being forced to do anything. Yet if the de facto situation is that children are made to sing the anthem, and that they are visibly segregated from the other students for their or their parents' choice, can that really be true? Is there no form of coercion going on whatsoever here? It seems that this situation is more coercive than an alternative, in which nobody sings the anthem at all. Is this perception correct?

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