Niall Ferguson: story needs to be mandatory at GSCE level, TV historian argues

By Andrew Hough 1015AM GMT twenty-one March 2010

Previous of Images Next Niall Ferguson is job for a " Jamie Oliver-style campaign" to have story renouned again Photo PA British schools placed as well majority significance on training about Nazi Germany, Prof Ferguson argued. Photo PA

British schools are unwell to scrupulously learn young kids about vital events due to a "junk history" curriculum, that has left standards at an all-time low, he said.

Prof Ferguson, 45, who has additionally presented a Channel 4 array of the worlds monetary history, pounded the subjects decline, arguing it was really bad taught and undervalued.

The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson Fewer receiving story GCSE as pupils desert normal subjects History "being cut from timetables" AS-level exams "not perfectionist enough" National curriculum being "dumbed down" Niall Ferguson is drifting initial class, whilst I"m in steerage - and we"re the same age

Despite the recognition of radio array and books by luminary historians such as Simon Schama, David Starkey and Andrew Marr, majority schoolchildren still doubted historys importance.

As a outcome a Jamie-Oliver-styled debate is desperately indispensable to have it renouned again, he argued.

Prof Ferguson, additionally an Oxford University comparison investigate associate at Jesus College, highbrow of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and comparison associate at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, called for story to be done mandatory for students up to GSCE level.

At benefaction story is usually mandatory for students elderly up to 14. The supervision shielded the training of history, observant it was one of the majority renouned subjects.

Ministers have formerly warned that story was being squeezed out of delegate propagandize timetables.

The Glasgow-born professors arguments, to be published subsequent month, are contained in a pick up of essays Liberating Learning Widening Participation, from heading teachers, historians, philosophers and businessmen.

The collection, that enclose arguments on how bankrupt by a slight curriculum, is edited by Patrick Derham, the head of Rugby school, and Michael Worton, vice-provost at University College London.

"History matters. Many schoolchildren disbelief this. But they are wrong, and they need to be swayed they are wrong," Prof Ferguson writes.

"History, it competence be said, has never been some-more popular. Yet there is a unpleasant paradox. At the really same time, it has never been less renouned in British schools.

"We have not long ago witnessed a successful debate to urge the peculiarity of food served for lunch in British schools. It is time for an homogeneous debate opposite junk history."

Fewer teenagers are receiving GCSEs in story as pupils desert normal subjects in foster of new-style skills classes, new investigate showed.

Last total show that 220,000 possibilities sat GCSE story in England and Wales last year, that was less than students receiving pattern and technology. At A-level some-more students complicated psychology than history.

Less than a third of students sat story exams in the summer of 2008, the second-lowest series given Labour came to power.

A new investigate from Ofqual, the education watchdog, found key subjects, such as history, mostly lacked cold and supposing singular opportunities for splendid teenagers to arrangement "higher sequence skills".

It found one story exam was "narrow in the scope".

Last year a inform from Reform, the think tank, argued all teenagers should be mandatory to investigate a "strong educational core"" of story as well as english, maths, the sciences, unfamiliar languages, and geography.

Prof Ferguson additionally argued that far as well majority significance was placed on training students about Nazi Germany and on a curriculum, where pupils were asked to select "a smorgasbord of separate topics".

"(This) explains why, when I asked them recently, all 3 of my young kids had listened of the Reverend Martin Luther King, but nothing could discuss it me anything about Martin Luther," he added.

Professor Colin Jones, boss of the Royal Historical Society, upheld a little of the ideas but discharged Dr Ferguson"s denunciation as condescending.

Last year Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, certified that teachers should have the "flexibility" to cut the volume of time clinging to sure subjects after it was claimed thousands of pupils were usually removing dual years value of training story rather than the approaching three.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families orator told The Observer "History is mandatory until fourteen and stays one of the majority renouned subjects at GCSE and A-level.

"The new delegate curriculum, that proposed in Sep 2008, is transparent that training contingency give young kids a sequential bargain of story utilizing accurate dates.

"Children contingency investigate a far-reaching range of areas, together with the growth of British domestic energy from the Middle Ages to the 20th century."