Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I want to start by complementing my colleague, Senator Conway, on this motion, which has our support. It is a very important message, and I thought the Senator was particularly articulate and passionate in how he spoke about history, and I suspect that those thoughts are shared across the Chamber. I certainly hope so.

This is an important topic. I grew up in England and was educated through part-secondary level education. I was always baffled because we were never taught about Ireland in England. It was never mentioned. It always stuck with me that people were not taught history. For me, history must be a core subject. It is extremely important in terms of building a nation of people as opposed to a nation of automatons.

May I express a concern respectfully to the Minister that in his haste to ensure that the needs of industry are being served, I hope that we can get an assurance today that he is not going to downgrade history in any way. I would hate to see a situation where the needs of our children are being subordinated to the needs of any particular section of industry. That is not to suggest that technical skills are not important. Of course they are, but broader education has served this country well. If we lose that in the process of the changes that the Minister are working towards at the moment, that would be a tragedy for our children and a tragedy for our country.

Senator Conway has our support, but I am trying to be constructive when I say that I would have liked the motion to have been a little stronger, because we should be asking the Minister to commit clearly to retaining history as a core subject. I liked the phrase used by Senator Conway, mentioning equal place, equal funding and equal supports. Indeed, the Senator said that history should not be lost as a core subject. Again, as my colleague, Senator Maria Byrne, has said, it is not actually a mandatory subject. My view, and the view of my party, is that it should be. Hopefully the Minister will take a cross-party message of support for this motion, and take that message on board. It would be a tragedy for our education system if that does not happen. Senator Conway is right when he says that there is a huge amount of concern among the teaching profession regarding any further attempts to downgrade history as it stands.

Sinn Féin's view is that history is a very important subject and going forward in this new junior cycle, any attempt to downgrade history would be a mistake. Our view is that the history syllabus should be updated to include events in Ireland's recent history. We would like to see students given a much more balanced education on what has happened in the North, for example, with civil rights marches, internment without trial, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and much more. Furthermore, the times we are in, with so many spurious media outlets providing alternative and false information, the so-called alternative facts, means that history is all the more an invaluable subject. Currently history students are asked to engage in critical analysis of historical documents and this is an excellent way in which our young students build up their ability to critique news and information.

We also agree that it is very important that history is studied from a variety of perspectives. Take, for example, Ireland's involvement in the Spanish Civil War. There is never just one account of history, and this should be reflected in how the syllabus is constructed and in how students consume and evaluate what they are studying. We fully support this motion. I hope the Minister takes these sentiments on board.

Clearly it would be remiss of me not to mention the current issues involving the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI. I would appeal to the Minister to take a fresh approach. Any objective view of the last year would have to conclude that this Government does not have any real strength in terms of how it deals with industrial relations matters. To be honest, between the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ross, and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, the Government has had a nightmare in terms of union relations over the last year. As my colleague in Fianna Fail pointed out, it is our students who will suffer. I would ask that the Minister takes a fresh approach and calls in the ASTI. I think ordinary people can understand the ASTI's concerns, particularly the issue of direct marking of papers. A lot of people understand why that is a core concern. I hope the Minister is not sleepwalking into another dispute, and perhaps he would be kind enough to give us some concrete actions which will be taken to ensure that further industrial strife is avoided.

To return to the core principle, I want to commend Senator Conway. It is a worthy motion and we must continually remind ourselves and the Minister that history is far too important to be relegated in any way in the coming reforms.