Sir Ron Cooke: 'We must assert the importance of geography in the curriculum'

From the president's address at the Royal Geographical Society's annual meeting

Geography is fundamental to understanding such enduring issues as social equity, globalisation, and the relations between environment and society.

The new Education Bill limits the core compulsory courses for the 14-16 age group to English, maths, science and ICT, with very little space for humanities and, of course, geography. Pupils need easy access to geography and history, not only because they are arguably two of the most civilising subjects, but also because they are the most important disciplines underpinning the new emphasis on citizenship.

We must assert and effectively justify the importance of geography in the curriculum. The days are long gone when an informant to a select committee of the House of Commons in 1879, concerning the expenditure of the London Schools Board, could declare: "Geography, sir, is ruinous in its effects on the lower classes. Reading, writing and arithmetic are comparatively safe, but geography invariably leads to revolution."

Long gone, too, are the days of the clerihew about geography and maps and history and chaps. Today, we are more likely to agree with Jeremy Paxman that "geography makes history" and "if such a thing as national psychology exists, it too may be made by geography". We can usefully still ask, in paraphrasing Rudyard Kipling: "What do they know of England, who only England know?"

Indeed, we might well see an educational challenge when we hear a well-known English footballer playing with an Italian club reply, when asked how he likes living in Italy: "It's fine. It's a bit like a foreign country." More seriously, Paul Brown shrewdly linked an understanding of the war in Afghanistan to many of the major issues at the centre of geographical enquiry, and we might well reflect not only on the need to study them, but also on the ignorance of them revealed by many journalists who were parachuted in to the war zone from their pads in Docklands.

The challenge for us is not simply to make our strong case for the discipline. It is also to ensure we can provide in the curriculum an attractive opportunity for all young people to experience the massive value of understanding the world about us, and the highly transferable skills we use to gain that understanding.