History in the National Curriculum: a lesson in curriculum devolution

Abstract

This article will focus on an event in the educational history of Wales in the 1980s which still impacts both on school practice and on thinking about concepts of Welsh identity. That event was the creation of the History Committee for Wales which was charged with devising a history curriculum for Welsh schools in the wake of the 1988 Education Act. The story will be told largely by using evidence gleaned in elite interviews with the ministers, senior inspectors and civil servants most closely associated with the decision to support or accept the creation of this committee.

 The significance of the decision will be assessed by charting the progress of curriculum devolution in Wales from the beginnings of state education and the implications of this for ideas of Welshness. This background will be briefly sketched, as will the background to the 1988 Education Act on a wider canvas. General reaction to that act in the Welsh Office will be discussed before the detailed implications for the subject of history will be explored in detail.

 It will then be argued that wider discussions as to how schools should approach and reflect the history and culture of nations not only shed important light on devolutionary processes which were gathering pace at the time but also reflect the nature of Welshness as perceived by senior figures in the world of education policy-making.

Keywords:

• history
• curriculum
• devolution
• Wales
• policy

Acknowledgements

This article is based substantially on interviews which were carried out in 2002 by Professor Richard Daugherty and Dr Prydwen Elfed-Owens, then of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, together with correspondence of my own. I am extremely grateful to them for making transcripts of the following interviews available to me:

• Interview A – a senior HMI, England

• Interview B – a senior civil servant, Welsh Office education department

• Interview C – another senior civil servant, Welsh Office education department

• Interview D – a senior HMI, Wales

• Interview E – Wyn Roberts (now Lord Roberts of Conwy), then Welsh Office minister responsible for education

• Interview F – another senior HMI, England (by correspondence with the present writer).