Orders of the Day — National Curriculum

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:24 pm on 29 April 1991.

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Photo of Kenneth Clarke Kenneth Clarke Secretary of State for Education and Science 10:24, 29 April 1991

We have just had a debate in which the Opposition refused to take any clear stand on an extremely important matter for the future. We now have the Opposition spokesman taking a totally bogus stand, trying to find partisan controversy where none should exist, on the past, as it happens, and on geography. I entirely refute his suggestion that what has happened brings a hint of party politics into the national curriculum. When the National Curriculum Council put proposals to me, I put out a draft order, with the reactions of me, Her Majesty's inspectorate and my Department to that draft order. We consulted on it. In the light of that consultation, we produced final orders.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) is not trying to damage the national curriculum, but he will do so if he tries to invent partisan disputes at the late stage of a process of putting into place the orders for two key parts of the curriculum—geography and history.

I trust that, by now, hon. Members support the principle of the national curriculum, and also support the fact that the national curriculum will include history and geography as two of the key subjects. We all know that history and geography in particular have been fading in importance and sometimes in the strength with which they have been taught in schools in recent years. Her Majesty's inspectors have found standards of work in primary schools generally weak in both subjects. In secondary schools, HMI has found that the so-called humanities approach adopted by some schools fails to do justice to either history or geography. The Government are reviving history and geography as serious subjects in our schools for our pupils. The Government may take credit for including them in the national curriculum and for making the orders.

The orders set out a solid foundation of knowledge, understanding and skills which all children should have in both subjects. We are reinstating those important parts of our knowledge, life, culture and history in our schools.

The process that I have described was always envisaged in orders that have been fully consulted on at every stage, of publishing draft orders with the Secretary of State's reactions to the final proposals from the National Curriculum Council, at which it arrived after consultation, and building on consultation that it has carried out from the final proposals of the working party. I then consulted on those and, in the end, made various changes when I first published the draft and again in the light of the final consultation.