Representation Matters: The Importance of an Inclusive Curriculum

The following is the full speech delivered by Zainab Ali at the Youth Shadow Curriculum and Assessment Review report launch, held in Parliament on 8 July 2025.

Zainab, Chair of the AQA Student Advisory Group, is a powerful advocate for educational inclusion and racial equity. She has previously addressed the European Parliament on racism in schools and continues to use her platform to challenge inequality in education. In this speech — delivered shortly before beginning her Politics and International Relations degree — Zainab speaks with honesty and conviction about the urgent need for a more inclusive curriculum.

Drawing on her personal experiences as a Pakistani Muslim student, Zainab sheds light on the everyday realities of exclusion and prejudice in the education system. Her words challenge us to confront uncomfortable truths — including the use of racist language — which are presented here as they were spoken, to preserve the authenticity and impact of her message.

Zainab’s call for genuine inclusion is both a personal declaration and a wider rallying cry for systemic change. Her voice, and the voices of other young people, must be central to the future of curriculum and assessment reform.

I stand before you today not just as a Youth Shadow Panel Roadshow representative, or the Chair of the AQA Student Advisory Group. I stand before you as someone who has lived through the realities of our current curriculum and assessment system. But more importantly, I stand before you as someone who has, for far too long, been made to feel like I didn’t belong – in my school community, in my classroom, in the very country I was born in.

Today, I want to take you inside the mind of a student – not the one who smiles on results day, but the one who walked through school corridors wondering if their presence is a disruption. I want to talk about what it feels like to navigate an education system that constantly fails to see you.

Because this is the truth: for many ethnic minority students, school isn’t just a place of learning. It’s a place where we are constantly reminded that we are different in a negative way.

As a Pakistani Muslim woman proudly wearing my hijab and traditional Pakistani clothes, I want you to understand that what you see is not just fabric or a fashion statement – it’s a visual representation of a journey that took me seven years to complete. Seven years to reclaim a narrative that our education system taught me to suppress. I now find power and purpose in that which makes me different from my classmates; however, this was not always the case. 

When I was in year 6, my cousin who was in the same class as me was repeatedly called the N-Word by our white classmate. In year 7, I was told my name was too difficult for teachers and peers to remember and it would be easier if my parents gave me a more Western name. In year 9, I was called a ‘Paki’ during a PE session, and just this year, I was sat in an A-Level Business class where both students and teachers laughed at the Indian accent of the narrator of the revision video we played.

These ‘jokes’ don’t come out of nowhere. They come from a curriculum that never challenged those ideas. In fact, it made room for them. 

Why can’t we learn about the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire, analyse the works of writers like Rumi instead of just Shakespeare, or study the contributions of Ibn Sina to Science? Why is it that the only time our faith and race are mentioned is in the context of conflict or ‘otherness’? This reinforces harmful stereotypes, which makes us feel like outsiders in our classrooms. 

But here’s what seven years of reclaiming my narrative has taught me: the problem was never with my identity – it was with a curriculum that failed to show me the power and beauty in my heritage. Standing here today, wearing my traditional clothes in Parliament, is my declaration that I refuse to be invisible anymore. This is me taking back the narrative that told me my race, my religion, my heritage were obstacles to overcome rather than sources of strength.

This is why we’re calling for authentic inclusion, not tokenistic mentions of diversity, but genuine representation that shows all students that their histories, their communities, and their voices matter. 

And at the heart of this change is something vital: citizenship education. Not the kind that asks us to memorise the names of MPs or repeat facts about our constitution. But the kind that teaches us how democracy works. How we can advocate for our communities. How to spot fake news, misinformation, and propaganda. 

We want citizenship education that prepares us for the real world. That shows us we have the power to make change. That tells every student, from every background: you belong here, and your voice matters.

Inclusion is not a favour. Diversity is not a burden. Let’s stop trying to get students to fit into a system that wasn’t built for them. We must stop continuing to perpetuate a system that marginalises and excludes, instead we must rise to the challenge of creating an educational environment that prepares students to become the architects of a more equitable tomorrow. The choice is ours, and the time to act is now.