Gandhi, Indian independence movement in Oxford curriculum
LONDON: The University of Oxford has introduced a new compulsory exam paper for history students to include Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern affairs as part of a wider move to make its curriculum more inclusive.
Possible topics include the Indian independence movement and the 1960s civil rights movement, highlighting figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
There will still be two compulsory papers on British history but from the autumn semester this year, the university’s history undergraduates will have to take a paper that covers neither British nor European topics as part of their three-year degree, The Sunday Times reported.
The move comes as universities across the country face protests as part of a wider “Why is my curriculum white?” campaign and demand that syllabus be “decolonised”.
Martin Conway, head of the faculty at the world’s leading university, said the change was being made to “bring in diversity in terms of the teaching of history” after consulting students.
Other UK universities are also revising the way they teach history in the face of student demands.
At Leeds University, a module on black British history is in development and the university’s Raphael Hallett said academics wanted to “audit” the syllabus to see whether it was designed from a “western or hegemonic perspective”. A university spokesperson said: “We are always open to academically sound suggestions for augmenting our curriculum.” HOUSTON: A seventh-grader in a US school was bestowed a “most likely to become a terrorist” award from her teacher, prompting angry reaction from parents forcing the school to apologise for the event.
The event was supposed to be a joke, part of a mock endof-the-year awards ceremony at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, Texas, near Houston, where a group of teachers hand certificates to students. Lizeth Villanueva, 13, said her teacher “just laughed” when she handed her the certificate during class on Tuesday. Her mother Ena Hernandez didn t find the award funny at all. FRANKFURT: Europe “must take its fate into its own hands” faced with a western alliance divided by Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.
“The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I’ve experienced that in the last few days,” Merkel told a crowd at an election rally in Munich, southern Germany.
“We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands,” she added. While Germany and Europe would strive to remain on good terms with America and Britain, “we have to fight for our own destiny,” Merkel went on.
Special emphasis was needed on warm relations between Berlin and newlyelected French President Emmanuel Macron, she said.
The chancellor had just returned from a G7 summit which wound up Saturday without a deal between the US and the other six major advanced nations on upholding the 2015 Paris climate accords. Merkel on Saturday labelled the result of the “six against one” discussion “very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory”.
The US president tweeted that he would reveal whether or not the US would stick to the global emissions deal - which he pledged to jettison on the campaign trail - only next week.