Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I thank Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail for tabling the motion. I am standing in for my colleague, Senator Mary Moran, the education spokesperson for the Labour Party group and a second level teacher herself, who is far more qualified than I, as a mere third level educator, to speak on this. Senator Moran has much greater knowledge of the way in which junior cycle curriculum subjects are taught and the changes involved.

As an educator, I have followed the debate, and I am very glad, as the amendment states, that we have seen very recently the proposals agreed between the Minister and the leadership of the second level teachers' unions on reform of the junior certificate cycle. As a parent of children who are still at primary level but who will participate in the new junior cycle, I am very supportive of the reforms, because it is hugely important to see a renewed emphasis on continuous assessment, more active learning, as we call it, and active engagement in the learning process, and less of the rote learning to which many of us were subject in secondary schools in our time. I am glad this is being done. It is important that the motion and amendment set the debate on history in the context of the junior cycle reforms, which is the appropriate context.

I speak as a passionate lover of history, who did history to honours level at leaving certificate. I had a wonderful teacher, Anne O'Connor. I studied it for the intermediate certificate, as it was called then, and continued it to leaving certificate. I was very familiar with the drop in the number of students who, having taken history at junior cycle, take it at senior cycle, to which Senator Mooney referred. It is due to a perception of curriculum overload. I recall from my own learning being conscious of the enormous scope and breadth of the curriculum, the huge task it was and the great deal of memory work required to get on top of it. We need to see reform in the way history is taught.

Having said this, what is right about it is that more than 90% of students study history to junior certificate level, so we are getting this level of history provision. That is notwithstanding the fact that it is not compulsory. It is an important point. There is a misperception and the bandying around of the phrase "downgrading". Most parents assume history is compulsory, but it is not. It is not compulsory from the State's perspective in education and training board schools or in community or comprehensive schools. It is made compulsory in the voluntary secondary sector, as others have said, which represents 52% of second-level schools. Despite the fact that it is not compulsory, as we all know, 90% of students present for junior cycle history. I do not think anyone really believes this will change under the new reforms and the regime to be introduced under junior cycle reform.What will change is that we will see history becoming a stand-alone or full subject.

There has been a problem, to which others have alluded, that, due to the historical requirement that history and geography were delivered together, there was a long linkage between them and it was long geography and short history. In fact, there is a 2006 report from the Department of Education and Skills which pointed out that many schools which make history compulsory - the voluntary secondary schools - find it challenging to provide the requisite time for history within the current junior cycle. The new junior cycle framework requires more time to be allotted to the particular subjects - I think it is 200 hours or three 40-minute periods per week over three years. This may lead to increased time provision for history as a subject and one would hope we will not see any drop off in the number of students studying history at junior cycle level. I know a good deal of work is still being done in terms of the preparation of the curriculum under the revised junior cycle model but there is again this emphasis on quality learning rather than on quantity, and on active engagement with subjects rather than rote learning. I believe that will be hugely important in the learning of history for all the reasons that Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail so eloquently put forward, for example, the importance of students gaining a sense of identity and an understanding of the past, all of which is hugely important.

We should bear all of this in mind when we are considering and debating junior cycle reform and also reform of the teaching of history. I am glad the Government amendment states it is confident the position of history as a subject is secure and that history will be continued to be studied by the vast majority of students at junior cycle level. Nothing will change in terms of our history teachers, and, as many have acknowledged, that is one of the most important reasons so many students are so keen to study history, even in schools where it is not compulsory, namely, the quality of the teaching. That certainly will not change and I pay tribute to the teachers.

Both the motion and the amendment refer to the fact we will be entering the centenary year next year and there is a programme of events for Ireland 2016. Of course, the education sector in general and history teaching in particular will play an important role in that. There is an extensive programme of events to celebrate the decade of centenaries and many competitions are being run, including a schools history competition and, of course, poetry, drama and art competitions through the schools to commemorate the centenary. I think that most appropriate and look forward to all of those events. I again thank Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail, and their colleagues, for putting forward this motion.