Hi Mark, This is actually a difficult question to answer. "Inward looking" is a phrase that means self reflection, or the study of the self. In this context it means that classes in the UK focus more on local history (UK history) and less on international history. "Parochial" is an academic (slightly pompous) way of saying "limited". Here is a version of the paragraph that has been rewritten in clearer English: "Courses have been made more detailed and difficult, but they are often limited to the study of national UK issues. "

'parochial' means limited in scale or extent, dealing with issues close to home, in this case the UK, rather than the wider world. 'inward-looking' means concern with yourself and your situation [again, in this context, the UK, rather than the world as a whole] 'more British history/geography in the history/geography curriculum' means that the course focuses more on the UK, and less on other countries, than it did previously. These changes have been made because it had been observed that students often did not have good knowledge of their own country [the UK]. It was felt that this should have priority [come first] over knowledge of other countries.

1. more about Britain than other parts of the world. 2. History and geography courses have been modified to contain more British history and geography (presumably by removing history and geography of other parts of the world).