10th June 2014 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The exam board OCR have dropped US classic novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men from their syllabus after education secretary Michael Gove required them to include more traditional British authors. The new syllabus also omits Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, an extraordinary work exploring social persecution which has long been featured on the syllabi of many exam boards. It is believed that other exam boards will be making similar changes after the reforms are introduced. The changes have caused outrage amongst the educational community, who have highlighted that the texts which have been dropped all explore ideas of social justice and encourage students to question inequality. Critics have said that the department for education’s policy on prioritising traditional British authors it tantamount to a ban on the US texts which challenge prejudice.
The Department for Education has said that it doesn’t ban any books or authors, arguing that the changes were simply a consequence of the need for students to be made more familiar with British authors. Labour have challenged the reforms on the basis that they are ideological and regressive, fuelled by a desire to remove challenging and socialist texts from the syllabus. OCR have explained that they are unable to include the texts, after the DFE’s reforms left no room for them. Further, OCR’s Paul Dodd noted that in the past the education secretary has expressed his personal dislike of American literature, and said that students should be reading classic British works such as Middlemarch instead.
The changes have given rise to rumours that the education secretary, who read English, designed the new syllabus himself against the advice of academics and writers who have reacted angrily to the removal of American literature. Some have denounced the plans as racist, pointing out that works exploring race and society have been abandoned in favour of some traditional British works which GCSE students will struggle to relate to. Others are outraged that the DFE is now effectively deciding what children read, and doing so despite the strongest objections from the country’s top academics and educationalists.