Ms Breda Naughton:

I will make an admission; I was a geography teacher a long time ago. When I was teaching, history and geography were like Siamese twins. We used to fight about whether they were the majority or minority subjects and whether they would be allocated two or three lessons per week. In the new scenario geography and history will both be stand-alone subjects, rather than tied to one another.

Chinese is currently provided in transition year in a small number of schools. When we discuss the framework and its implementation with schools, we emphasise to them the importance of using the teaching resources available, namely, history teachers. It is the responsibility of history teachers to encourage an interest in history among young people as they move from junior cycle to senior cycle. As Mr. McCarthy stated, the history syllabus at junior cycle is extremely long and difficult, whereas the senior cycle syllabus reflects to a much greater degree the way we want to go.