Role of women minimised in UK school curriculum: Report

Women's roles in history extend far beyond Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Anne Boleyn. A campaign in the United Kingdom (UK) is now aiming at adding more female lives and achievements to the curriculum taught in schools in the United Kingdom (UK).

End Sexism in Schools, a grassroots charity organisation working in the education sector, found through its research that women were mostly absent from history lessons in key stage 3, the first three years of secondary school in the UK. Monarchs were among the few women recognised by name, along with suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison, The Guardian reported.

Freedom of Information (The UK equivalent of the Right to Information) requests on lesson content provided to secondary schools revealed that 59 per cent of history classes at key stage 3 included no mention of women at all, while only 12 per cent focused on women and 29 per cent addressed women in other subjects.

Even when women were included, the study discovered that they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in school than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II.

It also identified gaps in the curriculum, with references to women centered on the Tudor era and the nineteenth century, building up to female suffrage.

Thus, the group wants the Department of Education to change the national curriculum so that women's roles are taught as essential issues, as well as to collaborate with examination boards to boost the number of named women throughout history.