FIANNA Fail will table a Dail motion calling on the Government to make a "clear policy commitment" to restore history and geography as core subjects on the Junior Certificate curriculum.
The party's education spokesman, Mr Micheal Martin, said the Minister for Education had failed to give an adequate commitment that history and geography would be retained as core subjects.
Mr Martin said Ms Breathnach's denial on Thursday that she intended to "abolish" history from the school curriculum was "ambiguous". He said it did not amount to reversal of the Minister's policy on the two subjects as outlined in the White Paper published last year.
"The Minister has said that no instruction to change the position of history has been issued `at this time'. However, we need a firm policy commitment as to the future of history and geography on the Junior Certificate curriculum," Mr Martin said.
But in a letter published in today's Irish Times the Minister writes that the White Paper "never proposed the removal of history from the Junior Certificate curriculum."
She said history has never been compulsory in all schools and is not compulsory above Junior Certificate level.
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