MP, Chris Skidmore, has called for history to be made compulsory to age 16 because he feels too few pupils are taking it at GCSE. His Parliamentary question revealed that a 159 schools did not enter any pupils for GCSE History last year. There are indications that Gove intending to make History and Geography compulsory to 16. I spoke with the historian Kate Williams on BBC Breakfast about this, trying to argue the case that History shouldn’t be compulsory because it means that creative subjects in the curriculum get squeezed out. I had a tough time because one of the presenters was a historian and Kate Williams did a good job of defending History as a subject. Perhaps a little flippantly I said that many pupils were fed up of studying “dusty facts”, arguing that too often History can become bogged down in details that pupils find unappealing. Subjects like Art, Drama, Music, Design and Technology and Media Studies — all in my view just as worthwhile in their own way as History — would get squeezed out of the curriculum if History was made compulsory; we’re already seeing this happen with schools scrambling to fulfil the criteria of the E-Bacc. History is compulsory already to 14, I just think we need to give pupils more of a choice at this age and allow them to pursue other subjects if they so wish.

The chart showing the numbers of pupils doing History is interesting.

19 July 2011 : Column 910W