Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter today. Much has been made of the plans to scrap the junior certificate. Instinctively, people are inclined to support reform, change and what is perceived to be progress. However, the possible denigration of history in the new junior cycle curriculum is deeply retrograde and will potentially have a damaging effect not just on our education system, but on our democracy.

It is far from clear that the plans released by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment will be good for education. Under those plans, students entering first year in all schools will be required to study mathematics, English and Irish as core subjects. Schools will then be free to offer a menu of other subjects to study and the number of core subjects studied at junior level will reduce to eight.

There will be casualties in this new system. For example, science and languages will not be core. However, we know that a language is compulsory requirement for entry into the NUI group of universities. We know also that science is an increasingly important aspect of our economic life. Therefore, the downgrading of history into an option for schools is of particular concern for me. It is vital that young citizens have an understanding of history. The commodification of education is creeping further into the tertiary education sector and the secondary sector. While scientific knowledge is crucial, so too is an understanding of history and culture. After all, history is far too important to be left to the historians.

How can we hope to comprehend how Ireland has evolved into what it is today without a thorough knowledge of the events, people and movements that have shaped the development of our island? Our interests are formed when we are young. The huge interest in local history and heritage is a fantastic community resource. All over the country, vibrant local history groups play a community development role offering recreation and often an economic resource through attracting tourists. Why risk losing the next generation of local historians at such an early age and for no good reason?

Most educational experts favour reducing the number of subjects studied intensely at secondary level. Most also favour reducing the focus on big set piece exams, but the downgrading of history within this framework would be a retrograde and disastrous step. Every child regardless of socio-economic background has a right to understand history. Knowledge of the past is crucial in questioning the present and never before has there been a greater need to question what is happening in the present.

The good news is that this is not a done deal. While the first change will come on stream in 2014, it will be 2016 by the time the changes are fully rolled out. What a terrible indictment it would be on our country that 100 years after the Easter Rising would see the final nail in the coffin of history as a compulsory subject in the junior cycle.

Ms Catriona Crowe, from the National Archives, recently made an excellent presentation to the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection. The History Teachers Association of Ireland and eminent commentators such as Professor Diarmaid Ferriter and Mr. Fintan O'Toole have also made their views known publicly. These voices are diverse and come from different points of view. The importance of studying history in developing analytical skills and critical thinking is clear. I urge the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, to listen to those voices in civil society. We need more time to debate these changes and we need a broader discussion of a holistic education for young people.

A willingness to challenge the status quo is important, but change without regard to the consequences of certain so-called reforms is a myopic and dangerous approach to public policy. History should remain a central element of the junior cycle and the campaign to prevent this proposal from being imposed on the next generation of students is only beginning.

This is not an ideological question. People with a range of different opinions in society will coalesce around the issue. The idea that every child might not get an understanding and knowledge of history at least up to the junior cycle is deeply worrying for our democratic system and our knowledge of our society. We need the ability to question and comprehend the world about us as it becomes ever more complex. I appeal to the Minister of State, in the most non-partisan fashion I can, not to proceed with this deeply dangerous proposal, which has no public support.

Where did this notion originate? Who is driving it and why? Education is not just about the murder machine as Padraig Pearse called it, but is about knowledge, culture and learning. I urge the Minister not to proceed with this proposal.

See this speech in context