Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Martin Conway for tabling the motion and all the Senators who contributed. This has been a valuable debate. Perhaps we do not step back often enough to think about the value and way in which we teach subjects that are important to us. There is no doubt that history is of major importance. It is formative in terms of the skills it delivers, the appreciation of the passage of events and how we have been influenced by them.

I need to defend my Department because some speakers portrayed a very negative view of it. The assistant secretary with responsibility for this area is a history teacher and is passionate about the importance of history in the education system. Senators may ask why we are undertaking the junior cycle reform which has been at the centre of this debate. It is all about improving the extent to which people can engage with the subject of history and the other subjects that are being taught in the new junior cycle because, regardless of whether we like it, we have been caught in the trap of excessive reliance on the final two and a half hour examination being the be all and end all of the way in which history is taught. The impact of this has been particularly damaging in the case of history because it has resulted in massive content overload at junior cycle level, huge focus on the textbook and significant narrowing of the rich range of sources to which Senators referred. The method of inquiry, the evaluation of events from different perspectives and seeing issues as having different dimensions creates the excitement about and wonder for history that everyone has spoken about.

It is worthwhile reading the interesting background paper on the junior cycle. It makes an interesting point about the tensions in history and its purpose. Is it about giving young people critical skills to hone and to pull and drag and insist on assessing the evidence and sources or is it in some way trying to say we are all in one big community and we should pretend we have a common history that is uniform and binds us together? That is a tension which is openly acknowledged in the paper. People have different views about history. Is it the critical skills that make us all uncomfortable regardless of our perspective or is it about creating a common purpose? It is clearly more of the former than the latter.

It is important that we understand and history helps us to develop tolerance. What was so exciting about the 1916 commemorations was that, for the first time, the camps from which people tended to view 1916 were broken down and people recognised that different things were happening in that period and that it was a complex issue. President Higgins described 1916 as an extraordinary act of imagination. There were also other things happening. One of the things I was very proud of was the way in which people of all sides were able to share in the appreciation of those events from different perspectives.

I will return to the issue of the purpose of the junior cycle.The intention is to go beyond that terminal exam and the cramming of the brain with stuff one can regurgitate in those two and a half hours and to light the flame that history or indeed science, about which one could say the very same, should light. It does allow for a variety of projects and achievements to be recognised, such as visits to Newgrange, if that is the choice or the examination of some of the historical documents relating to the Famine, the incidence of tuberculosis or whatever event. It is important to have those things recognised and for schools to have the flexibility to take on projects or run short courses that explore different dimensions and that those would be recognised.

I must correct Senator Gavan; teachers are not being asked to mark the achievements students make in projects or to mark papers in the junior cycle. All of the marking will be done by the State Examinations Commission, both the 10% and the 90%. What teachers are being asked to do is to look at the projects, encourage and support students, and indicate whether it was a very high achievement. There is not a marking, there is a very broad approach and an indication is made if a project is exceptional. It is something the students carry with them. Who said that education is what is left when what one has been taught has been forgotten? We will forget the date on which the Spanish Armada sailed but if we get involved in a project, as Senator Ó Ríordáin said, for example about TB in Ireland, someone involved in the project will still remember even at 90 years of age that he or she took on the project. The student will have a permanent appreciation and impact.

That is what the junior cycle is trying to do in terms of reform. It is unfortunate that it has been a source of dispute in terms of industrial relations but, equally, it is encouraging because if the present vote is accepted – I do not know whether that will be the case – one of the issues that will be resolved is the junior cycle. There have been hours of negotiations, not only on the junior cycle, but including it to make sure it will hopefully be accepted.

The reason the junior cycle is being reformed is that it is completely out of synch with both the leaving certificate, which is a better curriculum and allows more use of alternative sources, and with the way the primary curriculum is taught. This is the last element that is being taught in a very narrow way. It is interesting that compulsion applies to just 52% of the student population, those who are in voluntary secondary schools, but the take-up is not 52%, it is 90%. We have a high take-up even though there is no compulsion in the system. In the case of the junior cycle I do not think the real argument is about whether we should try to push the 90% to 100%. That is not what the junior cycle is about. It is about making sure that the 90% who take it have an exciting engagement with history, come away with new critical skills they can apply in other spheres and also get an appreciation of how history has marked the present and hopefully does not condemn us to repeat the mistakes again, or whatever the phrase is about history.

Work is currently being undertaken by the NCCA on the design of a new curriculum, for which we have had 232 submissions, which indicates a lot of interest, with a target of September 2018 for when the new offering will be available to students. The curriculum is very exciting and I hope it will be a legacy because, as outlined in the document itself, the NCCA has been very conscious of the 2016 celebrations and the way that has impacted on people's interest in history and it wants to build on that platform. Equally, some of the fears that were expressed earlier have probably been dealt with to an extent in that while the original intention was to examine students in eight subjects, that has been expanded to ten. History will be a stand-alone subject. Up to now that was not the case as it was a combined history and geography module. The intention is that it will have a stand-alone curriculum with 200 hours devoted to it and a more exciting variety of learning methods and environment for schools to take on.

A number of Senators expressed concern that perhaps because I have come from the jobs Ministry into the education Ministry, I have a very narrow view of the functionality of education and that it is all about creating people who can make widgets. That is absolutely not my view of education. In my education action plan we sought to articulate how education is pivotal to virtually every ambition we have as a nation, whether it is to excel in science, the various cultural fields or being able to crack cycles of disadvantage. Education is the driver of the permanent and sustainable change that we can make. We must ensure that we as a Department enable schools to be learning organisations, to be able to continually improve and to have the flexibility to use subject curricula to excite and engage their students. That is something I am very passionate about. Of course I recognise that one of the bridges education must help to build is the one from the school into the world of enterprise but it is also important to have a bridge into the world of public service, politics and community. Building those bridges is important but I do not see it as just a one-string bridge into a very narrow view of what we are trying to achieve because that is not the case. The one heartening thing I can say, having come from the enterprise portfolio, which might also give people a little reassurance, is that increasingly what employers want is not people who can make widgets but people who have the critical skills and competences to challenge and innovate, and who have the ability to work with other people, to evaluate material critically. Interestingly, history is one of the subjects that gives students those sorts of skills and capacities.

I thank Senator Martin Conway for tabling the motion and the many Senators who took part in the debate. Come September 2018 we will have a curriculum for junior cycle students to take on which and after three years in 2021 we will see them emerge from that syllabus. As Senator Ó Ríordáin said, I hope we will see more of those students opting to keep history on for the leaving certificate in order to further hone their critical skills. That would be an indication of success. The downside of the system at present, which is evident in the inspection report, is that a lot of students who took the exam displayed a low level of skill in answering the questions. They had not learned the sort of skills history was designed to equip them with. It is not a case of just getting the numbers up and getting more people to sit the exam. If the exam does not equip students with the wonder, joy and competences history can give them, then we are failing.

What is interesting when one looks at the issue is that the current system has failed a lot of young people who chose history but did not come out being able to exhibit for an examiner what we hope they would have been able to exhibit. The reform is about making a better environment for people to develop a love, appreciation and value for history. I am very enthusiastic about the work which is ongoing. It will be September 2018 before it hits the ground running. I presume I will be long gone from the Department by the time those young people are being examined in 2021 but I hope whoever is in my position will be able to say in response to Senator Conway's motion from seven or eight years previously that we have moved on and we have young people who are better equipped having come through a junior cycle with an appreciation of what is important from the study of history.On that optimistic note, I thank the Senators for tabling the motion and offer my support for the sentiments expressed.