Sir, The response of the Minister for Education, Ms Bhreathnach (May 4th), to those who have expressed concern over the threatened removal of history from the core curriculum in secondary schools is doubly welcome first, because it provides a Ministerial assurance that history will, for the moment, remain a required subject for the Junior Certificate in secondary schools and second, because the Minister has invited people to engage in debate on the shape and size of the core curriculum for the compulsory years of education. This committee welcomes this novel opportunity for debate, and it wishes to make the case for history remaining a required subject within the core, at least in secondary schools, under the headings of shape and size.
The case for history as a required subject to Junior Certificate now seems stronger than ever before because of the reshaping of the school curriculum that has already been implemented and that is still being proceeded with. One dramatic change has been the removal of all literature from the syllabus in modern continental languages, and it has been agreed that the literary content in Gaeilge will be truncated in the immediate future. Most pupils are exposed to some creative literature during the course of their studies in English but this is not required since there is no longer a set syllabus in English. As a consequence, pupils in the junior cycle are now primarily reliant upon history to provide them with a perspective on cultural and literary developments in Europe, Ireland, and the wider world. To abandon history as a required subject up to the level of the Junior Certificate examination would therefore result in an impoverishment in the education of Irish pupils which few appreciate, and such as would not be comprehensible in any other European country where literature and civilisation constitute a core element of language study.
In thus making the case for history as a continued requirement we are not seeking to trespass unduly upon the timetable. The fact is that history, as currently designed, comprises one half of one subject, where pupils usually study eight or nine subjects for the junior cycle. What we are asking is that one sixteenth or one eighteenth of each pupil's workload be assigned to the study of history for the three years of their compulsory education. This study should, if anything, complement rather than compete with the study of modern languages, and no scientist or technologist of my acquaintance has ever hinted that this minimal input of time is retarding the progress of our young people in science and technology, or in computer literacy skills. Yours, etc.,
Chairman, Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, Department of History, University College, Galway.