Plans to include the Iraq war in a new GCSE history syllabus have been criticised as “crazy” by a leading historian.

The new course from the Oxford Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts examinations board (OCR) will give pupils the chance to assess the rights and wrongs of the Iraq war, to study the terror attack of 9/11 and to consider why people become terrorists.

The course, which has been submitted to the exams regulator Ofqual for approval, covers the debate on weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein’s human rights record, claims about his links to al-Qaeda, the oil industry and the roles of George Bush and Tony Blair in the conflict.

Tristram Hunt, a history lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, said that too little time had elapsed since the conflict began for it to be included on the curriculum for 14-year-olds.

“I think that’s altogether crazy. The war has not concluded. The ramifications are still going on and I think we need more distance in time,” he said.

As pupils would be unlikely to know about the British imperial presence in Iraq in the early 20th century, they would not understand the historical context of the war, he added.

“I’m all for kids getting interested in current events. [But] it would be much better for them to know about Britain’s broad relationship with Iraq in the early 20th century and about people like Gertrude Bell [a British writer, political analyst and administrator in the Middle East at the turn of the last century] than what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield have said,” he said.

Dr Hunt said the only context in which it would make sense to teach the Iraq war to GCSE history students would be as an appendix to oil wars that began in the 1970s.

Otherwise it would be better to study it as part of political studies or citizenship lessons, he added.

However, the new syllabus has been welcomed by Sean Land, secretary of the Historical Association. “Giving pupils the chance to study the Iraq war will be a very popular move, but teachers will have to make sure they set aside their own views,” he told The Times Educational Supplement.

Another part of the OCR syllabus also risks controversy by asking students to consider how effective terrorism has been since 1969, a discussion that has previously only been considered by A-level students.

The effectiveness of the Irish Republican Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and al-Qaeda will be covered and pupils will be asked to think about what makes people become terrorists.

Another history exam, by a rival board, Edexcel, has a section on the July 2005 London bombings.

The proposed courses are part of the biggest revamp of GCSEs since they began 20 years ago. Most of the new GCSEs, which will be taught from 2009 and examined in 2011, will allow pupils to spread their exams over the course’s two-year duration and they will be allowed one resit per paper.

This switch to exams at the end of modules appears to be designed by the big exam boards to attract schools who pay a combined £400 million a year in fees.

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