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Booker prize winner calls for renewed effort to diversify curriculum
The Guardian
|January 27, 2026
The Booker prizewinning author Bernardine Evaristo has called for renewed efforts to diversify the school curriculum, 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 currently studying books by authors of colour, up from 0.7% five years ago, according to anew report.
Compiled by the Lit in Colour campaign group, the report says progress is too slow and that at the current pace of change it will be 2046 before 10% of students answer a question about a text by an author of colour in their English literature GCSE.
This story is from the January 27, 2026 edition of The Guardian.
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