No more A-levels in ancient history

Ancient history is to become a thing of the past, with the only exam board offering it as an A-level subject now planning to ditch the course.

The decision by the Oxford and Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts (OCR) exam board has led to concerns that pupils will no longer understand the legacies of ancient civilisations.

The subject has introduced students to topics such as the birth of Athenian democracy, the growth of the Roman Empire, the beginnings of Christianity, the revolt by Spartacus against slavery and the battle of Thermopylae, where the stand by an small Greek force against the Persians in 480 BCE became the byword for heroic struggles.

Last night experts were saying that all these were examples of history that would be lost on future generations.

The irony is that the subject is being ditched at a time when it is growing in popularity - with 1,000 students taking the exam compared with just 300 at the turn of the century. The rise is partly being put down to recent television programmes, such as Boris Johnson's series on the Roman Empire, films such as Gladiator and 300, and the BBC drama series, The Romans.

Posted by David on April 1, 2007 9:43 PM