Bernardine Evaristo renews call to diversify school curriculum in England

Writing in the foreword to the Lit in Colour campaign’s five-year progress report, Evaristo said ‘the term “diversity” itself is now considered a dangerous concept in some quarters’. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

The Booker prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo has called for renewed efforts to diversify the school curriculum in England, warning that young people are growing up in a society where “doors are closing” and the tide is turning against inclusion.

There has been progress in the diversity of texts on offer in the GCSE English literature curriculum, but uptake in schools is still low with just 1.9% of GCSE pupils in England studying books by authors of colour, up from 0.7% five years ago, according to a report.