Climate Change Shouldn't Make Curriculum, Says Government Advisor

Climate change is not to be included in the national curriculum according to a government adviser during an interview with the Guardian.

Tim Oates, the government adviser in charge of revamping the English school syllabus, said that schools will be free to decide whether and how to teach climate change.

"We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff.

The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist," Mr Oates said to the Guardian.

Mr Oates urged for the national curriculum “to get back to the science in science”, going against the Labour government’s emphasis on scientific “issues” rather than scientific knowledge.

Mr Oates wants to drastically reduce the national curriculum, which expanded to nearly 500 pages under the previous government.

Climate Change was introduced in the national curriculum in 1995. “Cultural understanding of science” and “applications and implications of science” were added to the curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds in 2007.

By Rosaria Sgueglia

[Image courtesy of Rob]