Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum

[James Gray in the Chair]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 324092, relating to Black history and cultural diversity in the curriculum.

This petition calls on the Government to teach Britain’s colonial past as part of the UK’s compulsory curriculum, and it has received over 240,000 signatures. The petition was started by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson and arrived on the parliamentary website on 10 June 2020. Within 48 hours, it had reached the threshold of 100,000 signatures. The speed at which the petition met the threshold for debate shows the strength of feeling across our country that change is necessary and urgent. Multiple petitions cover similar subjects, and the Petitions Committee has taken on this issue as one of our key projects for the year.

The creators of the petition, which calls to add education on diversity and racism to all school curriculums and to make the UK curriculum more inclusive of black, Asian and minority ethnic history, have also given evidence to the Committee. Holding hearings in partnership with the Women and Equalities Committee, we have heard from a wide variety of sources in this field, from the Education Minister to schoolchildren. I pay tribute to the Chair of the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for her commitment to the review. I am so pleased that the petitions have rightfully gained support from the public, which has allowed the Committee to investigate an area that I have long been passionate about: diversifying and improving our teaching of history in this country.

I must declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on archives and history, and I am also an honorary fellow of University of Wales Trinity Saint David. I am passionate about history and, above all, the way it is taught. It amazes me that we are so narrow in our curriculum. When I did GCSE history many years ago, we studied Adolf Hitler’s Germany, crime and punishment, which was mainly about Jack the Ripper, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. That was it. I then did my A-levels, when we did the Tudors and the civil war—Oliver Cromwell, Charles I and all that. Our curriculum is just far too narrow. It is easy for the Government to point to the option of teaching topic 3—“Ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745 to 1901”—at key stage 3. However, it is not mandatory; it is only one of many topics that can be chosen by schools and teachers. It is clear that the signatories to the petition do not feel that this is enough, and I must agree with them.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing the debate. Previously—I believe it was the year before last—no subject of parliamentary petitions had received more signatories than black history being taught as part of our national curriculum. That has certainly continued with this petition. I am not surprised, because when it comes to black history, we are not given a complete picture. When it comes to British history, we are not given a complete picture, because black history, and the history of our past slavery and colonialism, are often missing. How can we truly understand this country as it is if we do not address those issues?

Like most people who have grown up in the UK over the past century, I never learned very much about that, and what I did was self-taught. The majority of the information we can find is about the US civil rights struggle. These international perspectives are important, but it was far too long before I discovered the UK’s own rich civil rights history and all the information related to our role in the slave trade and colonialism. I want children in our country to learn about these things and why our country is the way it is today; about why they may, if they are black, Asian or from an ethnic minority, experience discrimination; and about important figures such as William Cuffay, Mary Seacole, CLR James, Claudia Jones, Olive Morris and so many more. I cannot stress enough how damaging it is not to see oneself reflected in what we learn and what we learn about our history. Our Government seem quite obsessed at the moment with patriotism and having children sing certain songs in schools and so on. However, when someone is constantly made to feel like they do not belong, because of rhetoric around immigration, and when that is reinforced by what they learn—or rather, what they do not learn—that can be extremely damaging.

Children have to be taught prejudice, I agree. We know that it does not come naturally to them. We all know, too, that the best way to deal with discrimination and promote inclusion is through education, yet for much of our history prejudice was instilled at school. Children were taught that one religion was better than another, they were taught harmful myths about gay people, and they were explicitly taught that the white race was superior to other races and that colonialism had a benign, civilising influence on foreign, faraway peoples who could only benefit from our interference. That was all bile, instilled in children and taken forward into adulthood. Those were horrible views that were entrenched.

Since then, the teaching curriculum has moved on, but does it do enough to address lasting legacies? According to research by the Diana Award, an anti-bullying campaign, almost one third of children have heard racist comments at school, with most having experienced it by their 13th birthday. Prejudice may no longer be taught, but are its root causes being addressed sufficiently? Here, black history is surely key.

“When I was brought up, I was taught in American history books that Africa had no history and that neither had I. I was a savage about whom the least said the better, who had been saved by Europe and who had been brought to America. Of course, I believed it. I didn’t have much choice. These were the only books there were.”

The late, great James Baldwin said that at the Cambridge Union in 1965. When I was at school in the 1970s, we were taught that Europeans discovered America, Australia and New Zealand, and they were barren wildernesses before our arrival. Although we knew about the evils of slavery, until recently, few of us understood how deeply immersed Scotland was in the trade. We had wiped the dark period from our collective national memory, but our streets held the clues, with Wilson Street, Plantation Street, Jamaica Street and Buchanan Street in Glasgow alone.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to and congratulate the almost 270,000 people who signed the important petition that led to this debate, including hundreds of Leicester East residents.

Across the world, racism and the far right are on the rise. It has never been more important that we learn from the history of racial oppression and end the injustices that exist to this day. With the Black Lives Matter movement, we have rightly seen renewed public calls for our schools to teach the true, brutal history of the British empire and the legacy of imperialism, colonialism and racism that continue to have a generational impact today.

The national curriculum currently omits the vast contribution that black people have made to the UK and the ongoing legacy of Britain’s imperial legacy. In reality, black history is taught in only 10% of all schools. To remedy this, the Government must pick up the calls from the National Education Union for a review of the curriculum and teacher training, and the strategy to make new entrants to the teaching profession significantly more diverse over the next four years. These are not new plans. In 1999, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry called for changes to the national curriculum to help tackle and combat racism in our institutions, including making black history mandatory. I support the mandatory teaching of history, specifically including black histories on the national curriculum in key stages 1 to 4.

I congratulate the Welsh Government on making black history mandatory in all their schools. They understand that by taking on the events of the past we can forge the future. As argued by the Runnymede Trust, the national curriculum should apply to all schools, regardless of status, to prevent some from opting out. Currently, free schools and academies do not need to follow the national curriculum.

The need for these improvements to the curriculum were underlined in March 2020, when the Windrush lessons learned review recommended that the Government

“tell the stories of empire, Windrush and its legacy”

Research by Teach First found that many pupils in UK schools will not have studied any novels or plays by authors who are not white. This shows how much more needs to be done to ensure that all pupils access a diverse curriculum.

When we reflect on the Black Lives Matter movement, it is crucial to recognise that the United Kingdom has been central to the historical subjugation of black people. It is estimated that until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Britain transported some 3.1 million Africans—around 25% of all slaves—to its colonies. When the British Empire did abolish slavery in 1807, it provided 46,000 slave owners with today’s equivalent of £17 billion, 40% of its national budget. The British Government only paid off its obligations to former slave-owning families and organisations in 2015. Until then, black British taxpayers were among those who paid to compensate those that imprisoned our ancestors. They are among those still paying the price today, with the slow and inadequate support offered to victims of racialised state violence, including the Grenfell Tower disaster and the Windrush generation.

It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

History is written by the winners. However uncomfortable and however painful it is, we have a responsibility to confront the whole history of our nation, not only the things that are easy to celebrate. We must learn from the parts about which we are disturbed and ashamed. Most importantly, we need to recognise that the history of the transatlantic slave trade has thrown a very long shadow and that we are still living with the legacy of the injustices committed both long ago and not so long ago. Learning from our past should create a better future. We cannot hope to reach a place of true racial equality without having the difficult conversations about our colonial past.

Education is a valuable tool to empower young people to make change happen. We have a duty to ensure that the next generation better understands historical injustices and the way in which those injustices still play out in our society today. Teaching black history and the histories of other ethnicities and cultures adds an important layer to our overall understanding. That does not mean erasing someone else’s history—far from it. Including more in our history books can only be enriching. I find it hard to understand why some people feel threatened by that.

Last Friday evening, I had the honour of chairing a discussion panel exploring Bath Abbey’s historical connections with slavery and Empire. The event coincided with the abbey’s exhibition on the same topic—I encourage anyone visiting Bath to see that fascinating exhibition. Bath Abbey has more monuments than any other parish church in our country. Some of those monuments praise the achievements of people connected with the slave trade. I commend Bath Abbey for bravely confronting the legacy of its history and demonstrating how we should respond sensitively today.

The speakers at that moving and thought-provoking event last Friday taught us so much. Two speakers recounted their and their parents’ lived experiences of arriving in the UK from the Commonwealth and the indignities they were subjected to. Sadly, they were not alone. Irvin Campbell, chairman of local charity Stand Against Racism and Inequality, told us that the only time black history was mentioned when he was a pupil was when the diagram of a slave ship was shown. The richness of black history has been left out of our school curriculum. We need to rectify that. Irvin taught me to use the term “enslaved”, instead of slave. To call someone a slave robs them of their innate dignity. He has spoken in schools about the proud history of African culture, their kings and queens, and he has watched young people swell with pride as they learn about their history.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) for introducing this important debate.

The people of Manchester, Gorton care deeply about diversity in education, as shown by the fact that over 1,000 of them signed the petition. The strength of feeling on this issue in Manchester and right across the country must be a signal to the Government that now is the time for a truly radical overhaul of the national curriculum, and that we must ensure it considers the histories, lives and experiences of all people.

Towards the end of last year, working in collaboration with The Black Curriculum, I launched a new diverse curriculum charter for schools across my constituency. The charter is backed by Manchester City Council, the Runnymede Trust, Kids of Colour, Impact Reformation and the Equality Act Review, as well as a host of trade unions. The charter was developed off the back of the many conversations that I had following the eruption of the global Black Lives Matter protests and the wider concerns about systemic racism in our country that were raised last year.

Racism is still a fact of life, and young people across the UK are still growing up in a society that is plagued by inequality. Education has the power to change lives, and it holds the key to raising a new and truly anti-racist generation of young people. That is why it is so important to ensure that the curriculum reflects the experiences of all people in our society. Too often, the current curriculum omits or misrepresents the contributions of black, Asian and minority ethnic communities in Britain. We gloss over colonialism and depict racism as an historical artefact rather than a current and lived reality. In doing so, we fail our young people.

There has been fantastic enthusiasm in Manchester, Gorton for the diverse curriculum charter, and many schools have already undertaken important work in addressing diversity and inclusivity in their curriculum. Although such enthusiasm and drive from local schools is incredibly welcome, we must be under no illusion that this is enough. Without concerted Government action to embed diversity and anti-racism at every level of our education system, all our children will miss out on learning about the wonderful richness of our society.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) for securing the debate, after 270,000 people signed the petition. It is a credit to them that we are having the debate.

I will start by quoting the Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb). He is not present, but we have been upgraded with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who is a fellow Sussex MP. Back in 2014, the Minister for School Standards said the following when he spoke to the Association of School and College Leaders on the importance of the curriculum:

“We all know the cliché of older generations asking their children, or grandchildren, ‘don’t they teach you that at school?’ We were determined to allow the children of tomorrow to answer such inquisitions, ‘yes, in fact, they do’.”

We should think very carefully before constructing a curriculum that is based on the schooling of yesteryear. Let us not forget that it was a Conservative Government who passed section 28, which banned the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in schools, until it was repealed by the last Labour Government. Just because some things were taught in the past does not mean that the same things should be taught in the same way today. For that reason, it is essential that we keep the curriculum under continual review and that we ask ourselves some simple questions. Is the curriculum equipping our kids with the knowledge and tools that they need to prosper once they leave school? Is it preparing our children for life and building tolerant citizens who embody the values that we as a country aspire to? And does it reflect the brilliant and diverse history of our country, avoiding narrow interpretations of our national story at the expense of a bigger, more significant truth?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the many people who signed the petition, and I also congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing the debate. Like him, we welcome the increased debate about black history in the curriculum, and I thank all Members who have contributed to today’s debate. We welcome the opportunity to respond on this matter, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has done on previous occasions.

This country has a lot to be proud of, and children should learn all aspects of our shared history, both the good and the bad. We must teach about the contributions of people of all ethnicities, both men and women, who have made this the great nation that it is today. The shared history of our country is one that is outward looking: a nation that has influenced the world and, in turn, been influenced by people from all over the world. It is those people who have built the culturally rich country that we have today—a true example of a melting pot. A great example of this was commemorated last Tuesday on 22 June, when communities across the country marked national Windrush day. The third national day celebrated and commemorated the Windrush community, and the nation paid tribute to the outstanding contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants.

The national curriculum enables teaching that includes black and ethnic minority voices and experiences. A shared British history can and should be taught, whether it is events such as the Bristol bus boycott, which many Members have mentioned today and which had a national impact, or the global impact of those soldiers from across the former empire who fought in both world wars. The theme “ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901” is statutory—I want to make sure that is on the record—but the topics within the theme are not. We believe that schools and teachers should use the flexibility they have in the curriculum to develop a more detailed, knowledge-rich curriculum to teach their pupils in an inclusive manner. It is knowledge that works to unite people and our nation by revealing the rich, interwoven tapestry of our history and enabling all pupils to see themselves in our history.

I realise that the Minister is speaking for a colleague at the moment, but would she say that it is fair to set as the aspiration for her Department, once all the changes to the framework have gone through, that within a very short amount of time we should never have a student going through the entire educational process—as is happening right now—without ever having read a book or a text that was authored by a black or non-white author?

Of course we want a broad variety of reading in particular—it is very important—and a wide range of books are available now in all our schools. I am sure that the hon. Member goes into as many schools in his constituency as I do in mine, and we see the broad range of books, but we cannot be taking away the teacher’s role here. Teachers want to be able to come up with their own curriculum and to be able to choose the materials. There is a broad range of materials. Obviously we have the statutory themes, but within that it is up to teachers; they are empowered to decide at what point they teach things and introduce many of the black authors that we have now on the curriculum. It is up to them to decide at what point they want to introduce that; it certainly is not for me to set out what all the teachers in our 20,000-odd schools should be doing.

In the theme about challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world from 1901 to the present day, the end of empire can be taught. For key stage 4, the Department sets out that GCSE history specifications produced by the exam boards should develop and extend pupils’ knowledge and understanding of specified key events, periods and societies in local, British and wider world history, and of the wide diversity of human experience. The GCSE in history should include at least one British depth study and at least one European or wider world depth study from the three specified eras.

There is significant scope for the teaching of black history within these. Two exam boards, OCR—Oxford, Cambridge and the RSA—and AQA, provide options to study migration in Britain and how this country’s history has been shaped by the black and ethnic minority communities in the past. Also, Pearson announced last year a new migration thematic study option, which will be available to teach this September. Therefore, the sector is responding and there are many organisations that support the sector with the production of these materials.