BLACK HISTORY MONTH IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT ON WHAT MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE BY THE RT HON LORD PAUL BOATENG
Black History Month is a good opportunity to reflect on what more needs to be done in order to ensure that our education system is fit for purpose.
The challenge is to prepare by a policy of inclusion rather than exclusion all young people to thrive in a diverse and multi polar world in which no region or race holds sway over all others. The curriculum and how people with an African and African Diaspora heritage are reflected in it is central to progress in this area. The Royal Africa Society and the campaigning expert education group Justice for History have sponsored an Inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Africa into Africa and its Diaspora in the UK School Curriculum. This is a welcome move and it’s been a privilege to Chair its meetings. The Inquiry has received a wide range of evidence from expert and informed sources giving evidence in writing, online, and in virtual person. I do not wish to anticipate its findings but the picture that is emerging is mixed. There has been real progress in some areas in terms of excellent materials and innovative approaches pioneered by inspirational teachers many drawn from our community but yawning gaps in others with real obstacles to progress. Not the least of these is a definition of
30 BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2021
what may or may not be examined in English Literature which apparently, we were told repeatedly in evidence now excludes Chinua Achebe one of the greatest of writers of all time in the English language on the grounds of nationality. The government must surely reverse its position on this as a matter of urgency if it is not to make a mockery of its vision of “Global Britain’.
Profoundly disturbing statistics
Profoundly disturbing too is the statistic that of the 59 history modules available from the three biggest exam boards Edexcel, AQA, and OCR, only 12 explicitly mention black history and only five of these mention British blacks. No modules in the GCSE syllabus for Edexcel the most popular exam Board mention black people in Britain at all, although we were told this is to change. Better late than never but this omission only now being rectified is indicative of the wider issue that effects the whole curriculum. This is not limited to just English Lit and History but includes Geography too where Africa is so often portrayed solely in terms of poverty and underdevelopment. This is I suppose a step up from the geography books of my own schooldays where the image of the Congolese Pygmy and his canoe was the prevailing one but only just.
The denial or diminution in the National Curriculum and the distortion of our place as black peoples in the world does not just diminish us but all peoples. What a shame that the child of any colour growing up in Cornwall could do so quite unaware of the role in history and musicology of Joseph Emidy. This virtuoso violinist was born a West African, kidnapped into slavery by the Portuguese pressed into the Navy by the British and ultimately freed in Falmouth where he founded the Falmouth Symphonic Society and became a famed musician. He inspired the abolitionist politician James Buckingham who described his work as an “achievement of extraordinary perfection”. I was privileged centuries later whilst in government to unveil a memorial stone in his local church, hear his story and meet his descendants living in both the US and the North of England. Teachers are under pressure What is clear too as we wrestle with these issues is that teachers are under pressure and resources are scarce.
