Why is the UK’s curriculum so whitewashed?

At this poignant moment in civil rights history, there have been calls to right some of the wrongs perpetuated by the inherent, institutional racism that has manifested in every facet of life. Last week, I wrote about police brutality in the states, a topic at the forefront of the current movement. But another, equally relevant, demand is to combat racism in the UK’s education system. Over the past week, I have seen petitions to diversify GCSE reading lists and teach about white privilege, letters to schools highlighting students’ personal experiences, and resources to fill gaps in our knowledge. As I began to reflect on examples of my own ignorance and shortcomings, I realised how lacking my understanding of black and civil rights history was. I recalled how whitewashed and Eurocentric my all-girls, grammar school education had been and how this spilt into my university experience.

In their book, Taking Up Space, Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi highlight the difficulties faced by black students at university. They illustrate the discrimination that black students face both on an individualist basis, and through isolation within the curriculum. The book lays out the facts on issues in access, curriculums, mental health and the social side of university. But it goes further to include personal experiences of many young black voices, to prevent homogenisation. The book is intended as a guide for young black girls and non-binary students in the UK’s education system. But it is equally as important for white people to read. One chapter identifies how a lack of black educators (just 1.8 per cent of all UK academic staff, which falls to 0.6 per cent at professorial level) instils imposter syndrome in young black students. Not only does this teach them that they are not welcome, but it creates imbalances in the courses on offer.

Cambridge and Oxford have been criticised countless times for their Eurocentric, white supremacist ideals. But other universities are not exempt from this tainted curriculum that fails to give a rounded view of racial discrimination throughout history, nor in modern society. It fails to sufficiently acknowledge and make space for black voices – from the professors teaching the courses, to the content that these courses cover. This systemic racism does not only exist in the higher education sphere. In fact, it starts incredibly early on, as primary and secondary students receive an extremely whitewashed education that okays institutionalised racism in the malleable minds of the UK’s children.

More than 20 years ago, the MacPherson Report highlighted the need for cultural diversity within the National Curriculum as a preventative measure to tackle racism. This 350-page report was released after murder charges were dropped against the four white males accosted for the racially motivated killing of Stephen Lawrence. Along with The Windrush Review, several other calls for diversification of the curriculum recommend that the racial bias within education needs to be eradicated. Colonial and migration history should be taught within history classes. Black history is British history and, therefore, should be an essential part of educating British youths. Furthermore, teaching about the injustice of racism serves to instil good intentions in young people at an early age, proven to reduce the likelihood of engaging in acts of discrimination.

The UK’s current curriculum states its aim to “help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world”. Yet it persistently offers a Eurocentric programme, which offers a narrow insight into an already romanticised British history. The autonomy offered to schools in terms of curriculum facilitates deliverance of an imbalanced and biased curriculum. The government’s current guidance states that students should be made aware of “ideas, political power, industry and empire” in relation to Britain between 1745 and 1901. A lack of further direction allows a rounded education of the importance of black people in British history to go amiss. Amidst a curriculum centred on the history of the Church, guidelines allow educators to breeze over the atrocities of the British Empire as they instead focus on modern European history (namely the First and Second World Wars). The current curriculum facilitates a discourse that glorifies British involvement in the Slave Trade with little critique. It fails to show how integral black history is to the construction of modern British society. Organisations such as The Black Curriculum campaign against the oversight of Black history in the UK curriculum. They offer excellent resources to deepen your understanding of British culture beyond the whitewashed education you may have received.

However, it is important to note that the shortcomings of the National Curriculum go beyond the history syllabus, which is only compulsory until Year 9. In English, I recall reading many of the ‘essential texts’ that most secondary students will study during their English classes. Charles Dickens, George Orwell, William Golding, Steinbeck, Shakespeare. If you cannot guess what connects these authors (aside from being men), I refer you to the title of this article. The one text we read, in which race was blatantly addressed, was To Kill A Mockingbird. Written by Harper Lee – a white woman. The literary canon is an ever-expanding list of works considered significant enough to be acknowledged. My understanding is that the works in the canon achieve this status by a vague contentious agreement. A lot of this is based on historical significance. So, because of a long and complicated history of oppression (and continuing discrimination), black authors tend not to be included. The black voices that do make the cut, are a select group. You may have heard of Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, but how many other black writers could you name from memory? By not including black voices in the curriculum, schools normalise this white bias. They fail to recognise the importance of studying black writers. The same goes for artists, musicians and psychologists.

Often, where black voices are included in the curriculum, their skill is taught as secondary to the colour of their skin. It is perfunctory and fails to appreciate their art outside of the context of its historical significance. In discussion, it is important to acknowledge race in order to understand the privilege that was not afforded to the person being studied. But the current approach utilises the contribution of black people solely to teach about civil rights. In the current secondary curriculum, the word ‘racism’ does not appear even once. Not in history, nor geography, nor the citizenship curriculum. The word ‘race’ appears, only in the context of teachers needing to take responsibility for equal opportunities legislature. Where racism is discussed in UK education, it is taught through a historic lens that suggests racism is a problem of the past. Racism is imparted as a brief moment in history, with little allusion to the discrimination faced by black people (and other people of colour) today. Even when discussing race, many teachers lack the sensitivity or understanding to approach this topic with compassion. In retrospect, the education I received during my school years had a very tokenistic approach to diversity, which was mainly tackled by including what was considered to be ‘multicultural’ or ‘diverse’ names in exam paper questions. Further evidence of this bare minimum approach stands in the use of Black History Month as a substitute for ongoing and thoughtful education. Through this, black history is segregated from the rest of the syllabus and fails to be recognised as a core topic.

The racial bias I have described here only refers to the curriculum. I have not even begun to acknowledge the systemic racism that discriminates against black students as well as black teachers. Moreover, to discriminate against anyone who is not white. As a white woman, I have never been a victim of this. The colour of my skin has afforded me a privilege that means I will never truly understand this. In the past, I have made mistakes and failed to check this privilege. I acknowledge that I cannot blame this on my whitewashed education. But now is the opportunity for us all to reflect on these moments, to question ourselves on what we should have done better, to listen to the black community. It is time to spark discussions with your friends and family, to unpick your own intent, in order to become a better ally. Ask yourself: How can I help to create an environment in which black people, in particular, but also other people of colour, feel not only safe but welcome? How can I further educate myself on race? How can we ensure this changing mentality and increasing awareness trickles down to future generations? It starts with education. And until the curriculum is diversified, until it actively includes black history as British history, until it seeks out black writers and artists to study and celebrate, it will always be tainted with racism. Because until we are actively anti-racist, how can we expect children to be?