Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for allowing this debate to take place and, in particular, Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell and the Independent group of Taoiseach's nominees. Before I address the topic in detail, there are a couple of aspects of recent commentary on this matter I would like to clarify. First, it has been suggested that history is currently a compulsory subject in all schools at junior cycle level. I do not accuse anybody of saying this but that has been the commentary. I looked in at the committee debate where one would certainly have got that impression from the protagonists addressing the committee. Nobody attempted to correct it. To reiterate, this is not the case. Second, it has been argued that the new junior cycle will see a dumbing down of the teaching of history. Again, this is not the case.

The point of abolishing the junior certificate and reforming junior cycle education is simply to liberate our students in order that they can learn. In October 2012, I published "A Framework for Junior Cycle". The framework builds on the NCCA document called "Towards a Framework for Junior Cycle" which was agreed by all the education partners. It sets out the principles, skills and statements of learning for the new junior cycle. The framework also highlights the need for fundamental changes in our approach to learning, teaching, assessment and curricular planning to improve the quality of the learning experiences of all our students.

The new junior cycle aims to give flexibility to schools by allowing them the chance to design their own curriculum to meet the needs of their students. It is about placing increased trust in schools by giving them more autonomy and allowing for a decentralisation of power in regard to the curriculum. We know that the best performing education systems in the world give schools greater autonomy. That is not an opinion only but, in terms of measuring the results in international terms, is the consequence of giving schools autonomy. Those schools believe, correctly in my view, that schools are in the best position to know what is right for them. As we have already heard, this is a radical change in Irish education because we have always been inclined to set rules and issue directives from the centre.

Why not have compulsion? In an article about the junior cycle, in the The Irish Times today, Professor Tom Collins quoted from Pádraig Pearse's famous essay, The Murder Machine, as I will do:

I would urge that the Irish school system of the future should give freedom - freedom to the individual school, freedom to the individual teacher, freedom as far as may be to the individual pupil. Without freedom there can be no right growth, and education is properly the fostering of the right growth of a personality.

Pearse was a practising teacher, radical in his day, and he set up St. Enda's school.

In this century, the junior cycle reforms are about this stance. The more subjects that are made core, the less choice there is for students. Subject choice is an important motivator in encouraging students to remain in school and to take an interest in what they are studying. Several years ago, the ESRI carried out a longitudinal study of post-primary students. That study provides us with immensely relevant data in respect of the factors that will energise - or deflate - the engagement of our young people with school and with learning. The report emphasised the importance of providing some subject choice for students, in particular offering access to more practically oriented subjects. Overall, the ESRI findings were particularly clear in regard to lower performing and working class students, especially male working class students. These are the exact cohorts that we know disengage from the current junior certificate.

Today, we are talking specifically about history as a subject. There are demands that history should be a core subject for the junior cycle which, as I noted at the outset, is not the case at present. Tomorrow, the other subjects waiting in the wings will have similar demands made for them, including science, geography, modern foreign languages, the arts and so on. I believe all of these subjects are important but do not believe that they should be compulsory core subjects. The framework outlines mandatory statements of learning which every student must achieve. As the counter motion states, these include: "understand[ing] the importance of the relationship between past and current events and the forces that drive change". It is clear that over the course of the junior cycle, students will need to acquire historical knowledge, awareness and skills. What is not specified in the new cycle is how these skills are to be acquired. We believe, following the advice of the NCCA, that this is clearly a matter for schools to determine.

What are we trying to do? The focus of the educational experience for our students must be on the quality of learning throughout the three years of junior cycle. Looking beyond our shores, we can see that in high performing education systems such as those in Finland, New Zealand, and Queensland, schools have been given greater freedom in deciding and creating the programmes they offer. When schools in Ireland are implementing the new junior cycle, they too will have the autonomy and flexibility to design their own programmes within the parameters of the framework. Schools will be able to decide what combination of subjects, short courses or other learning experiences will be provided in their three year programme. The decisions made by schools will be based on the needs of the students in the school areas. This means that apart from English, Irish and mathematics, which are the essential building blocks for literacy and numeracy, no other subject will be deemed to be compulsory.

As I mentioned, history is currently not a compulsory subject for all students in junior cycle. The rules and programme for secondary schools state that history is a core subject for all students in junior cycle who attend voluntary secondary schools. Voluntary secondary schools, which are primarily faith-based schools, constitute 52% of all post-primary schools. In other school types - vocational, community and comprehensive schools - the rules and programme make clear that history is not a compulsory subject. In spite of this, 91.1% of students who recently sat the junior certificate examination took history. It is the fifth most popular subject in the junior cycle so I cannot understand the sense of alarm about its imminent disappearance. In spite of the fact that history is not a compulsory subject for all students, the majority of individual schools have very high uptake levels in the subject which are not due to compulsion. Rather, they are caused by schools recruiting qualified history teachers who stimulate high levels of interest in their students.

History teachers attract the students through their love of history and by engaging the curiosity of students. This should continue to be true as the new junior cycle is implemented. One would think from the debate around this topic that young people come through the entire eight years of primary school ignorant of history, when in fact primary school is history rich and relevant to the coming of age of learning.

The new flexibility being provided to schools has already resulted in innovation at school level. For example, one school has introduced a new school-designed and assessed course in digital media and animation for junior cycle. It offered 24 places. It had 66 applicants. Another is offering a course in linguistics to first years, while another is offering courses in graphics and computer science. None of these schools has downgraded or dropped history as a consequence of these innovations. The reformed junior cycle will be implemented on a phased basis from September 2014 with the first cohort coming into first year.

The new history specification will be implemented in schools from 2017. In other words, it will start in two years' time and take three years to run through. This specification will be developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment and will involve consultation with the key stakeholders and the public. The new specifications will facilitate the development of skills including: critically interpreting a range of texts - I would have thought that was the essence of historical research, communicating, working with others, critical thinking and managing information, particularly through the use of digital technology.

The new junior cycle will allow schools to provide for the study of history through a number of means, either as a subject in its own right or as a short course, another learning experience. I think it was Senator Mary Moran who suggested that in, say, Dundalk, some of the local history and the relevance of the former industries and buildings there could be introduced by a teacher with a passion for history and make the town of Dundalk come alive to those young people in a way that is currently not provided for in the generic course.

Short course provision, if that is what is provided for some students, would still be significantly better than the current non-provision of any historical study for more than 5,500 students taking the junior certificate annually. We do not have 100% of students taking history in any shape or form, just 91% of students take history.

It is likely that much of the innovative work which has characterised transition year history will filter into short course provision in junior cycle. We have much to be confident about based on what has already happened. Schools will have considerably more options to add learning experiences in areas of interest to their students. These options will enable students to be exposed to the richness and wonder with which history is replete.

The implementation of the framework presents an opportunity to recast junior cycle history as a vibrant, student-centred and valuable subject, a subject with significant emphasis on the relevance of past experiences to our lives today. New approaches are likely to provide a host of new opportunities, in history and elsewhere, for students to carry out group or individual project work. This will include designing tasks, making oral presentations, undertaking field trips, using ICT for research, and presenting reports.

The new approach is about quality learning, teaching and assessment and will not be based, as currently, on quantitative learning, or rote learning, as we might more accurately describe it. It will be about learning to learn and, more important, learning to think. It will highlight the role of what is termed "assessment for learning" throughout the three years, not concentrated into three hours after five or six other subjects have been taken. This is the opposite of "dumbing down". On the contrary, it is about giving our young people the knowledge, skills and values that will enable them to understand and appreciate history. There will be a dedicated programme of continuous professional development, CPD, provided to history teachers to enhance their skills and confidence. That continuous professional development will commence in autumn 2016, a year before the new specifications are implemented.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I do not think there is much of a difference separating us but there is a fear for change. The most fearful are the teachers who have got into a groove of doing it in a particular way. Like the rest of us, they do not necessarily like change. I will not mention the Seanad and what might possibly happen to it. That would be inappropriate.