A report was released on March 22nd, 2022 from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa, supported by the Royal African Society and the educational consultancy, Justice 2 History.  The report highlights the urgent need to overhaul how Africa is studied in Britain. The inquiry calls for the Department for Education to abolish the requirement that all authors used for English GCSE exams should be from the British Isles. 

The Parliamentary Inquiry argues that exam boards and teachers should be free to choose novels and plays written in English by authors from any time or place.  This would help give appropriate representation from Africa and the Diaspora in GCSE courses. It also argues that we need to move away from the current portrayal of Africa in the curriculum and proposes specific steps to achieve this.

The report suggests that transforming the study of Africa in the curriculum should be a collaborative of teachers, scholars, and communities, supported by exam boards, publishers, and the government. The APPG made the point that it’s essential to build teachers’ knowledge and confidence in Africa. This will make the curriculum innovative and enriching. Africa should be included in the “modern world” section of GCSE and A-Level History and Geography courses. The coverage should go beyond development, disaster, slavery and colonialism to give students a broader and crucially, more accurate knowledge of the continent. 

The report also encourages:

• Publishers to take bold initiatives in the study of Africa in schools, in partnerships with educators

• Government and examination boards should reform examination framework to allow for both restoration and innovation