History forgotten in parts of the country
Jessica and I were chatting last week, in these tough times about the dangers of the loss of funding for humanities at the HE level. We have form – she is a Geographer, I did a history degree and we share an office with the Cathedral Archivist. I was therefore very disappointed to see this story about the death of history in some areas of the school state sector.
Whilst of interest what has it got to do with Rural England? Stand back a minute and think about those children in some places that don’t know where milk comes from, or have never visited the English countryside, some of whom thought in a recent presentation on “Estates” Jessica was talking about the inner city. I can’t see, without an understanding of things like the Industrial Revolution, the historical context for the Romantic Poets or a knowledge of the likes of Jethro Tull or Ebeneezer Howard, how future generations will be able to put Rural England into context or design policies for it – then as I said at the outset I have form!
The article itself goes on to say:
More than 150 comprehensives failed to enter a single pupil in GCSE history exams last year amid fears the subject is becoming limited to private and grammar schools.
In Knowsley, a Merseyside local authority, just 11 out of 2,000 pupils took A-levels in the subject, with only four passing their exams.
The figures in a report published today suggest that pupils in areas like Knowsley are 46 times less likely to gain A-level history than more affluent places like Cambridge, where 665 out of 6,038 candidates sat the exam, 557 of whom passed.
Ministers are increasingly concerned about the pupils’ level of historical knowledge when they leave school, with a recent study showing half of English 18 to 24 year olds do not know Nelson masterminded the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.