Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister to the House. As a Senator, teacher and lifelong student, I can appreciate the motion tabled by the Taoiseach's Independent nominees and I commend Senator O'Donnell and her colleagues. All Members will agree that history is as crucial to a student's understanding of the world as are maths, English or Irish, which at present are, and on foot of the junior cycle reform will continue to be, the only compulsory subjects.

As a teacher who taught music for many years in a secondary school, I will speak for a moment on the experience I have had of teaching the subject. In one school in which I taught, music was compulsory up to the junior certificate. All students in the school were obliged to study it until that point, after which it became an optional subject for the leaving certificate. Ten years ago, the position changed whereby music became a subject of choice in the first year. The numbers taking music to leaving certificate level did not change at all, which is a valid point to make in this debate. If one provides students with a choice, they can make up their own minds and by the time they come to leaving certificate level, they are well capable of so doing.

I am delighted to note that at present, 91% of students take history to junior certificate level. However, 11,000 students take history to leaving certificate level and this may suggest a need to examine the core curriculum and syllabus of history. As I have stated previously many times, students often choose subjects at leaving certificate level based on the national average grade of As or on the demands of the subject.