Elogio do ensino da Geografia

The Duke of York might have boasted to an audience of businessmen in Kyrgyzstan that the UK has "the best geography teachers in the world" – but Ofsted isn't so sure.

Its latest report on the state of geography in this country is called "Learning to make a world of difference", a reference to the subtitle of the late Rex Walford's history of school geography in Britain, written a decade ago. But where Walford used the phrase to signpost a story of innovation, creativity and success – one which has won the discipline an impressive reputation overseas, as well as within the Royal family – the Ofsted report deploys it with more irony.

Indeed, for those of us who understand geography to be an essential component of a good education, the report makes uncomfortable reading. It has many examples of interesting and inspiring teaching – but the key message is that these examples are not the norm. Since the early 1990s, says Ofsted, revisions to the national curriculum have gradually reduced the amount of prescribed content. Partly as a result, "all but the best students… were spatially naive. The mental images they held of the world were often confused and they were not able to locate countries, key mountain ranges or other features with any degree of confidence." Hence the children who claimed that India was "famous for its camels", or did not realise that Kenya was in Africa.

The problem here is that if geography is found to be weak in school – and the report shows that, in far too many cases, it is – the educational experience as a whole suffers. Geography is one of humanity's big ideas. It is concerned with producing and communicating knowledge about ourselves in the world. Now that we have entered a period in which human beings can shape the Earth on a large scale – even destroy all life on it – engaging young people with knowledge about the planet they occupy has never been more vital.

But geography is not just important on its own account. It is a linking discipline, connecting to science, to the arts, to history and languages. In primary schools where geography in strong, the subject can help to knit the curriculum together as well as satisfy pupils' curiosity about people and places. In senior schools, geography offers the opportunity to develop a broader and very contemporary skill-set. It also helps many students to keep their options open, rather than having to narrow their courses down to either the sciences or the arts. Geography straddles both, using diverse sources and data, and asking challenging and engaging questions about the change pupils can see in the world around them.

In schools where geography teaching is weak – and especially where it is handled by non-specialists – children are denied these crucial elements of a broad and balanced education that will benefit them throughout their lives. Instead, they will have a narrower conception of the world, and will have missed out on the fieldwork that could teach them about the power of learning directly in particular places and environments.

In the end, geography isn't just about reciting a list of capital cities – although that can be an impressive party trick. It is the subject that contributes more than any other to young people's knowledge of the world, their understanding of the relationships between people and places, and their ability and propensity to think critically and creatively about the ways in which we affect the planet we live on.

Given the vast ambition of the topic, it is easy to see how it can be badly taught. But it would be a betrayal of young people to give up on what geography can contribute to their education, just because it is hard to teach well.

David Lambert is chief executive of the Geographical Association