Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing time with Deputies Fiona O'Loughlin and Éamon Ó Cuív.

I welcome the Fine Gael Government’s U-turn on the status of history at junior cycle. It is a late but welcome U-turn. As the Minister for Education and Skills is aware, Fianna Fáil has consistently raised this issue since changes to history’s status in the junior cycle were announced by the previous Fine Gael-Labour Party Government. These changes were defended to the hilt by the previous Government and the Minister’s predecessor, Deputy Bruton, for many years causing disquiet among the educational community until this Minister took the initiative to change matters. The leader of our party, Deputy Micheál Martin, was one of the first to see the dangers of the downgrading of the subject would hold for our young people and called for it to be changed. He was joined by many of our leading historians, Diarmaid Ferriter most prominent among them, and even the President, as well as history teachers who have fought a long and often lonely battle on this issue over many years. I pay tribute to the many history teachers and societies who have been in contact with me over the past several years on this matter.

I raised this issue with the Minister of the day on several occasions when the changes were announced. Fianna Fáil has consistently stated the position of history should be maintained. Arguably, if the Government had been willing to protect the subject, this debate would not have been necessary and such a regressive step would never have been taken. I have seen in some of the new secondary schools which have opened that history was not compulsory, despite various commentators telling us that students would study it. It was starting to lose its place in the education system at junior cycle.

History teaches vital skills in information literacy and critical evaluation of the past. In an era when these skills have never been more important, to downgrade the importance of history was a retrograde step that has, thankfully, been changed. The President, Michael D. Higgins, stated that history is essential to understanding who we are today and necessary to the debunk myths, challenge inaccuracies and expose deliberate amnesia or invented versions of the past.

There is no doubt that an examination of the past is essential to our understanding of the present. We need only to look at the current debate surrounding Brexit and the backstop for the lessons of history to make themselves clear. The conversations around the Good Friday Agreement, infrastructure and the Border all require a broader conversation defined by our shared history and shared knowledge of history. A broad agreement which exists in the House and in civil society is based on that shared understanding of history. Diarmaid Ferriter stated earlier this week, "Surely if we have learnt anything over the last three years it is that contemporary crises demand a proper knowledge of the history of statecraft, constitutional questions and the roads that lead to a dangerous level of political, economic and cultural dysfunction."

While the progress made today by the Minister’s announcement is positive - I welcome the U-turn - the exact nature of the changes which will take place on the subject have not been made clear, even in the Minister’s speech tonight. If he has an opportunity at the end of the debate, it would be welcome if he stated exactly what "special core status" means. He referred to increasing the number of history students at senior cycle.

That was certainly one of the big dangers of downgrading history at junior cycle. The Minister wants "to see every junior cycle student learn about history". The NCCA stated all junior cycle students would already do that. The Minister also said he wants "to awaken a love of history at primary level." While my party supports that view, what does it actually mean for junior cycle students who started last year or last month? How will this affect their curriculum? What are the detailed plans? A welcome announcement has been made but the details have not been fleshed out in any way. The question the Minister posed to the NCCA today to work out how these changes would happen may well have been better posed last November instead of this review. While I certainly acknowledge the work the NCCA has done, the review it produced in many ways restates what it has been saying for some time in other documents. It was certainly what its representatives told me when I met them to put forward the Fianna Fáil view during this process.

Special core status for the subject cannot mean that the downgrade continues in practice but that we are now paying lip-service. We need to flesh out exactly what is meant by "special core status". For Fianna Fáil, it means the full restoration of the subject of history to its former position and beyond because technically history was never compulsory in some of our schools. This fact was used to make an argument against restoring history or making it compulsory. It was never a strong argument because it was based on an outdated view of what vocational education was about.

While we understand that there is work to be done to make this change at junior cycle, it is incumbent on the Minister to provide clarity on what the actual change will be. We would, as I stated, welcome clarity from the Minister regarding students who started last year and this year.

Tá muidne ag fáiltiú an méid atá ráite ag an Aire. Táimid ag lorg níos mó sonraí maidir leis. Tá súil agam go bhfuil an míniú leis an bhfógra seo ná go mbeidh an stair curtha ar ais mar ábhar atá ag croílár an churaclaim atá ag na scoileanna ag an teastas sóisearach agus ag an tsraith sóisearach

See this speech in context