Feminism in the School Curriculum

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to respond to this important debate, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) on securing. To quote her, it gives me the opportunity to lay out the Government’s position on the A-level reforms and the broader issues raised.

The Government recognise the importance of feminism and its goals of equality and social justice. Tackling gender inequality at all ages and levels is at the heart of our commitment to extending opportunity for all. As the Prime Minister said in October about measures to eradicate gender pay inequality, opportunity is nothing without equality.

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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Margot James.)

[Mr Gibb]

We believe that pupils must learn from a young age that treating everyone equally and fairly in all spheres of life is part of the democratic values we are proud to enjoy and uphold.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Given what the Minister just said about the value the Government place on women’s involvement in all areas of society and policy, does he think they have spent enough energy on impact assessments of their policies, particularly their income and welfare policies?

[Mr Gibb]

That is not an issue for this debate, but yes the Government carry out equality impact assessments in all major areas of policy.

If pupils are to understand their responsibilities as members of a democratic society, it is important that they are exposed to a curriculum and qualifications that not only promote and discuss the concepts of equity and fairness but recognise the huge achievements and contribution of women to our society and history, in politics, science, literature, music and the arts. I am proud that the new national curriculum, introduced from September 2014, does this. It sets out the essential knowledge around which teachers can develop lessons to build pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the lives and works of influential women.

We expect schools to highlight the issues faced by women and their contribution as part of their legal duty to provide a broad and balanced curriculum. In the history curriculum, for example, the programmes of study promote examples of the lives and achievements of prominent women. At key stage 1, it promotes the examples of Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Rosa Park, Emily Davison, Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell. Furthermore, good schools already teach their pupils about key moments in British history, including the suffragette movement, and highlight the bravery and successes of women from all walks of life and ages in history.

In science, at primary school level, pupils can be taught about the work of Jane Goodall, the renowned anthropologist, and the palaeontologist Mary Anning. At secondary school, they can be taught about the work of prominent female scientists, such as the role played by Rosalind Franklin in the development of the DNA model, and Marie Curie, the only person to be awarded the Nobel prize for physics and chemistry.

As she said, the hon. Lady successfully supported one of her constituents, Jessy McCabe, who last year raised concerns about Edexcel’s music A-level specification. I am pleased that the specification now includes a number of set works by female composers. I am also pleased that Edexcel undertook to review the specifications of its other qualifications to ensure they were diverse and inclusive.

All schools are subject to the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty, which requires a school and its trustees, both in planning and running the school, to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; to advance equality of opportunity; and to foster good relations between communities. All schools are required to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. This includes challenging prejudice and promoting tolerance.

In addition to the role they play in teaching children about the lives and contribution of women, schools can teach feminism as part of citizenship education, which is in the national curriculum at key stages 3 and 4 and is designed to foster pupils’ awareness and understanding of democracy, governance and how laws are made and upheld, of which the suffrage movement is a vital part.

The programme of study for personal, social, health and economic education includes teaching pupils that they have equal rights to opportunities in education and work, and to recognise and challenge the stereotypes that may limit their aspirations. It also makes clear the unacceptability of sexist language and behaviour, the need to challenge it and how to do so. PSHE lessons are also an ideal opportunity to discuss prejudice and open up discussion about gender stereotypes and similar issues. That is why we want all schools to offer high quality PSHE, using trained teachers and drawing on the best resources.

[Angela Rayner]

As somebody who did not go into further and higher education, I commend everything the Minister has said so far—I think it is absolutely fantastic. However, does he agree that it is completely unacceptable to have only one female political thinker among the 16 identified at A-level? In the light of everything he has just said, will the Government do something to change that?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, and I will come to that in more detail shortly.

In addition to the reformed national curriculum and GCSEs, our reforms to A-levels are aimed at equipping all pupils with the knowledge and skills they need to progress to higher education. The proposed new content for the politics A-level will require for the first time that all students study some core political theories in detail. Students will be required to study liberalism, conservatism and socialism—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Yes, we left that in mainly because it is likely to become even more important as the Labour party struggles to find its heart. Students will be required to study those theories and the ideas of their key thinkers, which will enable them to understand these fundamental political theories and provide a foundation for the study of politics at university.

We recognise that the work of female political thinkers was not given due weight in the draft content. The final content will set out clearly those female political thinkers whose work should be studied. Suggestions have included Simone de Beauvoir, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton, as well as Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg, to name but a few.

There is always a balance to be struck in designing qualifications between establishing breadth of study, making sure that each of the areas to be studied can be covered in sufficient depth, and avoiding qualifications becoming unmanageably large. Feminism is an optional area of study in current specifications. It was never our intention to exclude the study of feminism from the reformed A-level. We said we would listen to the consultation, which opened on 3 November and closed on 15 December. We have seen the strength of feeling about this issue among those who have responded to the consultation. The Secretary of State for Education, whom the hon. Lady mentioned and who is also the Minister for Women and Equalities, has also taken a close interest in this issue.

As was recently mentioned in the other place, feminism can also be studied within other A-levels. For example, in the reformed sociology A-level, students must study issues of gender. Exam boards are responsible for setting the detailed content of qualifications in their specifications, and schools are free to decide which figures they teach about in their classrooms. Following the consultation on the politics A-level, exam boards are making changes to the final content to respond to the concerns raised. We will publish our response shortly, but I can assure the hon. Lady that the final politics A-level will give all students the opportunity to study the core ideas of feminism.

Promoting the goals of feminism means that we have to go further than teaching pupils about justice and equality. That is why the Government are determined to increase the number of young people studying science, technology, engineering and maths subjects post-16. In particular, we want to encourage more girls to take those subjects.

[Dr Huq]

Before the Minister moves on to the sciences, will he say how many replies there were to the consultation? I am curious to know how many there were, if the figures of 50,000, and 4,000 on the other petition, are any indication, given that the Minister referred to the weight of opinion.

[Mr Gibb]

We will respond to the consultation shortly. At the moment, officials are going through all the responses. We have seen a number—[Interruption.] I was hoping for some in-flight refuelling on the precise number to answer the hon. Lady’s question. On the basis of the responses so far, I believe a large number of people have responded on this point. [Interruption.] Unfortunately, it was not very helpful, so I will have to pass on that. The fact remains that the issues will be made public once we have responded to the consultation document. We will set out fairly soon, in great detail, a summary of all the responses, so the hon. Lady will not have to wait long for a full answer to the very reasonable question she asked.

We are funding programmes such as the Stimulating Physics network and the Further Mathematics Support programme to support schools to increase take-up of maths and physics A-levels, with a particular focus on engaging more girls. The national network of maths hubs is also leading a national project aimed at increasing participation among post-16 students in A-level mathematics and further mathematics courses, and other level 3 courses, such as core maths. In this context, many hubs are exploring ways of increasing the proportion of girls studying maths at this level and beyond.

The STEM ambassadors programme raises awareness among children of the range of careers that science can offer. It is worth noting that 40% of the 31,000 STEM ambassadors are women. We funded Engineering UK to deliver a programme of Big Bang Near Me activities—local versions of the national Big Bang fair—that reached more than 100,000 young people, half of whom were girls, in 2015.

Excellent teaching is, of course, vital if we are to engage more girls in STEM subjects. We are undertaking a number of initiatives to support this, including supporting maths and science teachers through the National Science Learning network and the national network of maths hubs; attracting top STEM graduates into teaching through generous bursaries and scholarships; investing £67 million to train an additional 2,500 teachers and upskill 15,000 non-specialist teachers in maths and physics over the next five years; and the triple science support programme, which supports schools to offer three separate science GCSEs.

The Government are also backing the excellent Your Life campaign to increase significantly the numbers taking A-level physics and maths, particularly girls. This is a digital campaign to demonstrate the range of opportunities that maths and science can lead to. Positive signs are now beginning to emerge. Similar numbers of girls and boys take science and maths at GCSE, and achieve similar results. Although fewer girls than boys progress to maths and physics at A-level, we have worked hard in recent years and made some progress. Provisional 2015 results show that since 2010 the number of girls taking maths A-level has increased by just over 3,500 and physics by just under 1,000. Overall, there have been 12,000 more entries for girls in all maths and science A-level subjects.

Our education system has an essential role to play in creating a fair society with opportunity for all. We are confident that our world-class knowledge-based curriculum and other changes that we are introducing will contribute to this goal. I am enormously grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue today. She has made some important and compelling points, and I hope she recognises that the Government understand these concerns, and feels that they are being addressed.

Question put and agreed to.