This looked like potentially good news and if there is some truth in it then it represents a rather rapid victory for Mary Colwell’s campaign.
On this blog Mary has written about her ideas a few times, starting with A Natural History GCSE in 23 November 2012, and then Natural History GCSE (2) in October 2018 and GCSE in natural history – next step in November 2018.
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But it won’t be worth doing the GCSE until most of the jobs in conservation are paid rather than voluntary. Why is most conservation done by volunteers? It’s for the good of everyone and is mightily important. It’s the Victorians wot dunnit – and governments are only too willing to continue to pass the very considerable buck.
The government is committed to making even more jobs “voluntary” in the sense of expanding workfare and zero hour contracts and work-to-audition schemes, so getting them to pay for vital conservation jobs seems a bit unlikely. Especially when so many actual charities like National Trust are determined to expand the volunteer hobby-job roster rather than actually pay people too.
Whilst there is a good argument that there is too much reliance on volunteers in the conservation sector I don’t think that this has an important bearing on whether or not the nature GCSE would be worth doing.
The main aim of the GCSE in natural history is surely to make the general population more aware of and better informed about the plants and animals that we share the landscape with rather than to train up the next generation of conservation practitioners.
Like most people I took GCSEs (well, they were called ‘O’ Levels at the time) in a variety of subjects, most of which have had little or no direct relevance to my working life, but I don’t at all regret the time spent studying history, english literature or physics, for example. Although these and other subjects have not necessarily had a tangible benefit in terms of career opportunities, salary levels etc, I appreciate their contribution to my general ‘cultural capital’. I would like to think that a person who had taken the natural history GCSE but who went on to pursue a career in something completely unrelated would nevertheless retain some knowledge and appreciation of nature. This would be beneficial to that person in opening a world of pleasure to them associated with a lifetime of interactions with the wild species they encounter. It could also be beneficial to the environment in that such a person would hopefully have a greater awareness of how their personal decisions and actions, from what they buy to how they vote, might affect wildlife.
My concern with a GCSE in natural history is more along the lines that it is likely to be an optional subject and as such may only be chosen by those students who already have an interest in nature (assuming it is even offered in most schools). As a result it will perhaps only have a very limited effect in making the population as a whole more nature-literate. For this reason I would like to see natural history being brought more centrally into school curricula and from a much earlier age.
Whilst the concept feels very worthy, and I know I am a bit out of touch with the 21st century education system, I have a feeling that this will be one of those nice optional courses which are only run in a few schools where they have the resource to do it. Only when Biodiversity, landscape and land-use and Natural History are scattered through the mainstream subjectstaught to all will be really start to get the knowledge back into society.
An optional, niche GCSE will continue to pander to the part of society where you get a plethora of qualifications, then have family support through higher education and a voluntary placement for 6-12 months ahead of the first conservation job. Whilst the rest of society either continues to scrape an existence or lives their high-disposable, high-income professional existence…. and then we have got where, exactly?