Higher level paper seen as 'doable but dull'

LEAVING CERTIFICATE HISTORY:"DOABLE BUT dull" was how one teacher described yesterday's higher level Leaving Cert history paper, which featured document analysis and social and military history. Students also answered questions on a prepared case study, which accounted for 20 per cent of the overall mark.

“The questions on the case studies were challenging,” said Seán Delap, history teacher at the Institute of Education. “They lacked imagination and could have covered areas that the students have more interest in.”

The document question related to Martin Luther King’s recollection of the first morning of the Montgomery bus boycott. Students were asked to consider the word “negro”, and its role in language, then and now. They were also asked to examine the significance of the bus boycott in the American Civil Rights Movement.

“A question on Michael Davitt related to ‘social and political reform’, however students would have studied Michael Davitt in the context of social reform,” one teacher complained.

“A number of questions have appeared on previous papers which may have caused difficulties, given the breadth of the higher syllabus.”

The Leaving Certificate history syllabus was recently reviewed to draw in more aspects of history including social, economic and women’s history.

Figures who featured on yesterday’s history paper included archbishop John Charles McQuaid, Mary Robinson and Mohandas Gandhi.

The subject had been in decline, but has enjoyed a modest recovery since the introduction of the new syllabus, which was examined for the first time in 2006.

Over 12,000 students took history yesterday – three out of four took the subject at higher level.

“Overall the paper was doable, but dull,” Delap said. “The examiner could do better by providing greater choice of questions and topics that resonate with candidates. Better students would have coped with the paper, however the weaker candidates may well struggle.”

History teacher Dermot Lucey felt that the paper offered students plenty of choice. “The only place where the scope was limited was in the areas of ‘pursuit of sovereignty’ and ‘dictatorship and democracy’,” he said. “A lot of students choose these two areas, so it may have been a deliberate move to encourage future students to broaden their focus,” he said.

He welcomed the attempt to unite different areas of the syllabus in single questions. “Some areas, such as ‘technology of warfare’, are difficult for students to write full answers on,” he said. “By putting them together with other topics, such as ‘wartime alliances’, students have more scope.”

One out of four students took yesterday’s ordinary level paper which was well received, and “it did not contain any great surprises. There was a good choice and the questions were very accessible,” Delap added.

Ordinary level history featured Maureen O’Hara, Bernadette Devlin and TK Whitaker. Students were also asked to assess Charles J Haughey’s contribution to Irish life and the impact of Gay Byrne and RTÉ.