Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

We managed to modernise the leaving certificate syllabus during the 2000s and everyone who has taught it or seen it in action has been very pleased with that work. Many people in this room did huge work to support that. One of the challenges we face is that the junior certificate syllabus is not in line with that. A consequence of that is a significant drop off of students from junior to senior cycle. Deputy McConalogue asked earlier about the statistics on uptake. It is hard to track year on year but in 2012, some 53,000 students did junior certificate history but only 11,700 students did it at leaving certificate level. There is no one in this room more passionate about history than me but look at the comparison with geography. Some 54,000 students did junior certificate geography in 2012 and 25,700 students did it at leaving certificate level. That is not the fault of the history teachers. It is not even the fault of the Department. The syllabus is overladen with content. Teachers and students do not know where to start and where to stop. That is part of the reason that when we revised the syllabus in 1989 it had to be revised again by 1996 and we then tried again during the 2000s. It is vital we take some of the content and increase some of thinks between junior and senior cycle history. That is where areas like key skills and other factors in the framework should help us to link junior to senior cycle in a more meaningful way. We are teaching some leaving certificate students skills in fifth year because there is often not the time to teach the same skills in junior cycle, especially if the timetable is restricted to two or three periods per week. That is the battle that is being fought. We must look at the framework as an opportunity to link junior cycle history more to the senior cycle.

Bearing in mind the rules and programme only compel 52% of schools to teach history, I have often fought the battle in schools where history is not offered at all to students. Unfortunately these are often students who are disadvantaged. I intend to use statement 8 and other statements to my benefit in the future when trying to push that all students must have access to meaningful history.

The lack of skills at third level may be the case, although that is not for me to say. The whole shape of the framework is to enforce the development of literacy, numeracy and other analytic skills in a meaningful way, hopefully by taking some of the content out and increasing the time provision for students who study history. Right now the maximum I would see in provision for junior cycle history is 200 hours. That is three 40 minute periods per week over three years. It will be the minimum in the new stipulation and I must look at that as a really important reinforcement for time to develop the skills that may well be lacking according to the previous speaker.

The irony that we may be lessening the importance of history just as we commemorate the decade of centenaries. Right now, the existing junior certificate syllabus provides for a fairly cursory glance, "an overview" is the phrase that is used, of the period from 1912 to 1923. I do not know if anyone could claim that we are giving students a meaningful understanding or that we can give students a meaningful understanding of that decade in the time available to teachers.