Don’t Divide Us Director: Alka Sehgal Cuthbert

Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is an educator, academic, author and campaigner who believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality both in education and as a prerequisite for the civilised conversations necessary for democracy to flourish. Alka comes to the directorship of Don’t Divide Us following two years as its founder lead on education, a campaign which she felt impelled to join as a counter to the fractious and one-sided discussions about race relations in the UK which have dominated since 2020.

Alka began her career teaching English Literature in inner city London and went on to become a member of the Ofsted Advisory Panel on English. Until recently she was still practising on the front line as an English teacher with the Civitas Education Charity supplementary schools project. She is a prolific author of specialist texts on education, including What Should Schools Teach? Disciplines, Subjects and the Pursuit of Truth (IoE UCL Press, 2017). She has spoken at numerous prestigious conferences and gave evidence to the 2016 All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry (APPGI) on Knowledge and Skills in Education.

Alka made a characteristically bold entrance into politics in 2017, standing for the Brexit Party as a protest against the potential democratic deficit that would have followed had the popular vote not been enacted.

Alka is a wife and mother of two adult children. She enjoys cooking, opera and travelling to visit family in India, when time allows.

“Britain has a positive story to tell about race. My family came here and found a country still on a journey to redefining its new postwar relationship with the commonwealth. For the most part it has done this successfully and it’s a tragic mistake to allow all that we’ve achieved to be side-lined in a chaotic rush to import ideas from elsewhere that don’t reflect our joint inheritance in the UK. I look forward to nurturing the tremendous talents and knowledge base of the DDU supporters and Advisory Council as we work to ensure that there is always a free and open discussion about these issues”.