An anthropology teacher who took up the subject after fleeing war-torn former Yugoslavia has backed a national campaign to preserve its A-level status.

Tomislav Maric, who works at Heston Community School, grew up in modern-day Croatia and came to England as a refugee in 1992 to escape civil war in his home country.

He says he chose to read anthropology - the study of human behaviour - at university in an attempt to better understand the roots of the conflict and how future wars could be avoided.

He believes the subject could play a major role in preventing extremism and home-grown terrorists in the UK by fostering a greater appreciation of different cultures.

"If this isn't the time to teach anthropology when is? The Government talks about teaching British values and how better to teach our children to be tolerant of each other and different cultures?" he said.

"There are young people from Hounslow and Southall who are going off to fight with terrorist cells in Syria. If we teach children to appreciate different values and understand where they come from I think we could reduce the lure of extremism."

More than 4,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the exam board AQA's decision to axe anthropology from its list of A-level subjects.

Pupils have only been able to study the subject at A-level since 2010 and it is now taught at 33 centres across England, including Heston Community School and Bishopshalt School, in Uxbridge.

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The numbers sitting it have grown steadily from 95 at A2 in 2012 to 222 last summer and Mr Maric said he expects entries this summer to approach the 385 who took A2 archaeology last year.

But AQA says those figures are still too low and students will not be able to sit the exam after 2018, though re-sits will be allowed the following year.

An AQA spokeswoman said: "This isn't about the importance of anthropology as a subject – it's about how we, as an education charity, can bring the most benefit to young people.

"Sadly we just can’t justify continuing with an A-level where there's a real lack of experienced senior examiners and entries are so low that it's difficult to set appropriate grade boundaries."

Anthropology lessons at Heston Community School have included a visit by an Amazon Indian to discuss the threat posed by illegal loggers, and classes about the political and cultural issues surrounding Female Genital Mutilation.

Mr Maric, who has taught humanities at the school for 15 years, said: "Perhaps the best benefit I have observed on my A-level anthropology students at the end of the A2 is their transformation into less judgmental humans with more respect for the other cultures."