Education: Gender Equality

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to make gender equality education a statutory part of the curriculum.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, we want a society where choices and success are not limited by expectations and perceptions about gender. There is already scope within the school curriculum to teach gender equality through literature, history and citizenship. Schools can also organise activities outside the curriculum, such as inviting guest speakers. It was an honour to be invited to Eden Girls’ School in London last week to talk about my own experience as a woman in Parliament.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, for the past year, five primary schools in the London Borough of Camden have been participating in a pilot programme created by a non-profit organisation called Lifting Limits. It encouraged school staff to analyse everything they did in the classroom through a gender-equality lens. It took a whole-school approach, with training for staff, sessions with parents and an overhaul of the curriculum, to shift away from almost exclusively looking at white men in areas such as art history and science, as well as making changes to the learning environment. Will the Minister please look at the outcomes of this pilot project and see how these findings can be integrated into the curriculum across England?

[Baroness Berridge]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the outline of the pilot project. She is indeed right that there has to be a focus on women being promoted, particularly in the science field, and the national curriculum subject content now includes people like Rosalind Franklin. So, yes, I would be happy to look at the project and give the noble Baroness a response.