History being dropped in secondary schools, any truth?

H3llR4iser

Premise: I am not Irish, I moved here about 4 years ago from Italy. I have always been keen on observing the cultural differences and similarities you can find between countries far and close, and one of the most striking is how different the educations systems are across some of the EU countries.

I will admit that I can't fully grasp how the Irish system works as it's completely different from the one I grew up and studied within. One thing however stroke me: I heard a number of friends and acquaintances going on about how some subjects, in particular history, will be eliminated from the curriculum in the upcoming years. Yet, I can't find it mentioned anywhere: no articles, no discussions, no nothing. Am I searching the wrong way, or are people just talking sh1te? I can't really imagine any EU country to do away with teaching history, to be honest...

linguist

Hi. The issue is the reform of the junior cycle which currently leads to the Junior Certificate Examination (Junior Cert.)

I don't have time to go into great detail here. If you go to www.ncca.ie you'll find everything you need.

Basically, the proposal is that the current Junior Cert exam as we know it will disappear. English, Irish and Maths will remain compulsory and they will be examined by the State Examinations Commission, just as they are at the moment. Every other subject will become optional. However students will be expected to get a rounded education which includes some aspect of historical study. Most students will continue to do full courses in the traditional subject areas however the proposal is that they would also do a number of short courses instead of a couple of the full courses.

So, in short, yes, there are fears that not every child in junior cycle might do history in the future. How likely is this? At the moment, there are schools where history is not compulsory so it already happens. I expect that history will remain compulsory in more 'academic' schools but it may not be compulsory in more 'disadvantaged' ones. What you have to understand is that lots of teachers subject associations have problems with the changes and they are making as much noise as they can. Essentially jobs may be on the line for non-permanent teachers and whilst I am personally a big fan of history and loved it in school, we have to understand that there is a certain amount of self-interest in putting forward the worst case scenario.

H3llR4iser

Understandably so, then. Interesting that it is so difficult to find definite information. In all fairness, as much as I'd be more of a "scientific" mind, I just can't see how ignoring their own history and that of other cultures can help any population in any way. Regardless of any interest, and out of sheer consideration for culture, it's quite an idiotic proposal.

linguist

I'm personally with you all the way. However, there is another argument which says that there are students for whom doing too many academic subjects doesn't cater for their specific abilities.

There are quite a few teachers who don't believe we will actually see these changes, at least in full.

m*pp*t

And just to make the point (which no one ever seems to mention) history wasn't actually compulsory. I attended a VEC school where I chose to do history for junior cert but it was completely optional (I didn't do geography - also optional). As far as I know it used to be compulsory in secondary schools but I don't know when/if that changed. My father was teaching in a VEC since the 70's and history/geography were never compulsory there in all his time.