Britain’s biggest exam board has added a more diverse set of texts to its English GCSE syllabus, following complaints about there being too many “dead white men”.

Edexcel, which is owned by Pearson, announced on Monday that from this September, schools will be offered more poems, plays and novels to choose from including those written by authors from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

Calls to “decolonise” the curriculum have been gaining pace at universities, where students have urged faculties to update reading lists. The move by Pearson is one of the first indicators that the movement is now gaining momentum in schools too.

In addition to the works of William Wordsworth and Robert Bridges, the GCSE poetry anthology will include the Pakistani-born Imtiaz Dharker and Grace Nichols, who is Guyanese.

Meanwhile, the post-1914 Literature paper will feature plays by Tanika Gupta, who is of Indian heritage, and Benjamin Zephaniah whose parents are from Barbados.

Other new texts include the novel Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin, who was born in India, and Boys Don’t Cry by Malorie Blackman, the former Children’s Laureate whose parents are from Barbados.

Katy Lewis, Pearson’s head of English, Drama and Languages, explained that the move followed calls for the selection of texts on offer to be more representative of different cultures and ethnicities.