Diane Abbott MP and Lord Simon Woolley, chair and vice-chair of the APPG for Race Equality in Education, wrote to the Education Secretary last month calling for a national education programme for Black students to be implemented. A programme like this is crucial, particularly as fresh analysis shows that school attainment gaps for Black children have “significantly” widened in the past year. We cannot wait any longer to tackle race inequality in our schools.

That is why I am proud to be the Founder of the APPG for Race Equality in Education, and the Director of Enact Equality, a non-profit organisation that works with politicians across Parliament to advocate for greater race equality. 

Officers in our APPG have tabled various questions on the topics of race and education to the government, and the Department for Education’s (DfE) response is that the department “does not design education policy to exclusively target certain groups of pupils based on ethnicity”. However, the government recently announced a £1 million education programme for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children (which I strongly welcome), and Gypsy and some Traveller ethnicities have been recognised in law as being ethnic groups, protected against discrimination by the Equality Act 2010.

By refusing to establish a similar education programme for Black pupils, the DfE has in many ways neglected the ongoing barriers that are disproportionately experienced by particular groups of children. For example, students of Caribbean heritage still have the lowest GCSE attainment, are one of the least likely groups to go to university and have the highest exclusion rates and lowest income households.  

Let’s not forget that next year, in 2022, the Welsh government will be taking steps to tackle race inequality in education by making Black history lessons mandatory in Welsh schools. During an event hosted by the Social Market Foundation, I directly asked Nick Gibb MP (who was, at the time, Minister of State for School Standards) why the DfE has refused to do the same in England. The justification was that the department believes teachers are already given the flexibility to teach whatever they want to include in their curricula.

I can only imagine how powerful it would have been to have learned about the range of influential Black pioneers who paved the way for future generations like myself

However, a survey by the House of Commons Petitions Committee found that 69 per cent of survey respondents ‘strongly disagreed’ or ‘disagreed’ that the curriculum, and the freedom and flexibility it is intended to give teachers, guarantees that children leave primary school with an appropriate understanding of Britain’s diverse history. In addition, 90 per cent of respondents felt there should be a statutory requirement for all children to be taught explicitly about the history of Britain’s ethnic and cultural minorities. Around a quarter of teachers said they lacked confidence in their ability to develop their pupils’ understanding of Black history and cultural diversity.

It's therefore imperative that we collectively call on the DfE to infuse Black history into the curriculum all year round, and better support teachers to advance their pupil’s understanding of Black history. Coupled with this, we must reform exam boards to incorporate specifications about Black history and cultural diversity. There are organisations, such as The Black Curriculum, who already have a variety of resources available on their website, and companies such as GCSEPod and its CAACH project, have carried out work to promote Black authors too.    

I can only imagine how powerful it would have been to have learned about the range of influential Black pioneers who paved the way for future generations like myself, particularly when I was a school child, and rarely taught about or by academics who looked like me. I know that it would have made a huge impact - not only upon my understanding of my own history, but of the disciplines that I learned in school too.  

I truly believe that we need a holistic review about what we teach children, and an honest conversation on how best to support students. So much of what impacts a child’s development happens outside of the classroom. Tackling institutional racism across all institutions is key – understanding and challenging the root causes of poverty, in particular child poverty, and also tackling racism in the criminal justice system, including stop and search.  

Teaching children a racially diverse curriculum is a good first step. Let’s make it one of many.

‍If you would like to engage with the work of the APPG for Race Equality in Education, please follow the group on Twitter or Instagram @appg_reie, or email secretariat@raceequalityineducationappg.org