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Among mountains of depressing news, your report on the further removal of history from core university subjects may appear just a hillock, 1 May) (Studying history should not be only for the elite, say academics. The statement that those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it has rarely been shown to be so true as it is now: a reinvigorated far right across the globe threatens many communities and democracy itself, and in Britain a fundamental ignorance of our inglorious past fuelled the Brexit debate, and continues to inflame racism. I trust those paid to teach history will challenge this government’s pernicious doctrines about the purpose of education.
My Oxford University doctorate in history equipped me to work for the common good in the voluntary sector and trade union movement. And developing the ability to think critically and question established norms, achieved through the study of history and other humanities, is valuable in any career, although the prime minister is evidence that studying history and learning from it are not the same thing.
Peter Purton
Southall, London
Richard J Evans is right to say that history helps critical thinking skills and allows us to distinguish fact from fiction. But he implicitly accepts the reductive narrative that a subject should be valued on its desirability in the eyes of employers. If we judge a subject on its monetary outcomes, we lose all sense of the subject itself.
When we commodify the act of learning and frame the pursuit of academic success as one of financial self-interest, studying for its own sake becomes an act of rebellion. Studying history allows us to realise the irony and insignificance – and therefore the enormous beauty and conflict – of our lives, revealing in no uncertain terms the blindness of those who say that nothing is important but equipping yourself for a hyper-globalised economy. A subject should radically reframe our priorities – allowing our financial objectives to shape how and what we study puts the cart before the horse.
Jude Wilkinson
University of Warwick
In promoting the cause of history as an academic discipline, and of humanities more generally, it would be helpful to discard the term “non-vocational”. Papers written by Prof David Nicholls, which can be readily viewed online, demonstrate that history graduates develop insights and skills that enable them to enter a wide range of careers and to be successful in them. A term such as “multi-vocational” would give a more positive message, as well as portraying reality. Ongoing research and publicity is also needed to highlight the employability value of humanities graduates.
Geoff Timmins
Emeritus professor and national teaching fellow, School of Humanities, Education and Global Studies, University of Central Lancashire
I was saddened to read that Aston University is intending to close its history, language and translation courses. My son studied maths there in a combined honours degree with Spanish. As a result of learning Spanish, he worked in South America and subsequently in Switzerland and the US – in each case using Spanish as an essential part of his work.
Without this skill, his job prospects and ability to work internationally would have been severely reduced. The government keeps talking about “global Britain”, but removing language courses from universities seems a strange way to achieve that.
Nigel Knowlman
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
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