The removal of poems by Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen from a GCSE course has been described as “cultural vandalism” by the Education Secretary.
Nadhim Zahawi criticized the decision of the OCR examination board and promised to speak to its bosses.
The review board said it made the changes to the GCSE poetry anthology to offer more variety.
“Larkin and Owen are two of our finest poets,” the Conservative MP for Stratford-upon-Avon tweeted.
“Removing your work from the curriculum is cultural vandalism. I will speak to the Audit Committee to clarify this.”
Larkin, born in Coventry, is widely regarded as one of the finest British poets of the 20th century.
He took up a position as librarian at the University of Hull in 1955 and published his acclaimed collection The Less Deceived that same year.
While Oswestry-born Owen is known for his poetry chronicling the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War.
These include Dulce Et Decorum Est, Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange Meeting.
The changes, first reported by The Times, aim to “offer more poetry by contemporary and established poets of color,” OCR said.
It added that the new poets would also include disabled and LGBT voices.
Among the new names are British-Jamaican poet Raymond Antrobus and Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky.
The board added that most of the removed poems had already been examined and assessed.
Mr Zahawi said his English skills improved as a teenager through Larkin’s poetry.
“We must not deny future students the chance to develop a similarly strong connection with a great British author,” he said.
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