National curriculum an obstacle to diversity in architecture, says celebrated teacher

Pinder, who is also a trustee of the Stephen Lawerence Trust, works at Graveney school in south-west London, where he encourages students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds to become architects and designers.

The teacher pointed out that 70 per cent of architects are still white men, while just 1 per cent of architects are black – but said he is proud that each year about four students he has worked with go into the design and architecture industries.

However, he added that the national curriculum remained an obstacle to change, as it is too focused on STEM subjects, to the detriment of creativity– particularly at state schools.

‘We don’t make anything anymore. What [students from non-traditional backgrounds] don’t realise is they have the potential. The academic system is saying English, maths and science – they are the only things that count. The creative people have basically been sidelined.

‘The establishment has been privately educated on both sides of the party [divide]. If you go into any private school, they value creativity. Why? Because it is a multi-billion-pound industry. The establishment realise that if they let people from non-traditional backgrounds get too much creativity, they will get power, and that’s what they don’t want.’

Pinder added: ‘The national curriculum has been condensed by a group of educated people who have to keep control, so to keep control they shrink the curriculum and keep creative subjects as extra subjects. They are funnelling people down a route, a pathway. They want a conveyor belt because they can determine the outcome. They can fix the game.

‘We realise that the game has been fixed, so we have to come up with different strategies, different ways of looking at things. There are so many initiatives and so many good people trying to make the change, but there is a lot of traction against that.’

The teacher added that people from a non-traditional background ‘have got to have an underground support network to help each other’, not least to help students not feel isolated. ‘When I went to Camberwell School of Art I was the only black person in my year, and I felt so lonely,’ he said. ‘So that’s one of our main functions; a network of people that other people can turn to.’

Pinder said that practices who wanted to help diversify architecture should get in touch with him on LinkedIn, where he often posts when he is looking to line students up with work experience.