From September all post-primary schools will offer History and all students entering first year will study the subject

Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh T.D. has today announced the arrangements to be put in place in order to facilitate History’s special core status in the Framework for Junior Cycle.

Following Minister McHugh’s decision of 1 October 2019 to accord History special core status within the Framework for Junior Cycle, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) was requested to advise how the decision could be best given effect.

Minister McHugh thanked the NCCA for its support and advice.

He said “I am confirming the new core status for History for all students entering Junior Cycle from this September.

“I believe that there is an obligation on leaders and older generations to ensure we provide the opportunity for the next generation to gain an understanding of our past – the good and the bad. We need to afford young people the chance to learn from our chequered history and appreciate how knowledge of the past can shape the future.”

Minister McHugh added: “I am hugely grateful to the NCCA Council for the work they have done to review the place of History in the Junior Cycle and also the advice on how best to implement my decision to give it a special core status.”

Minister McHugh has decided that from September 2020, all schools will be required to offer History as a Junior Cycle subject and all students entering first year at that time will be required to study History as part of the curriculum. Students will follow the existing Junior Cycle History specification, which is of a minimum of 200 hours’ duration and will be assessed at a common level.

The History specification was introduced to schools in September 2018, as part of the rollout of the Junior Cycle Framework.

Prior to the introduction of the new Framework, History was a mandatory subject in approximately half of post-primary schools, although around nine out of ten students across post-primary continue to take the History examination at Junior Cycle.

There are 21 subjects being offered under the framework. Three of these, Mathematics, English and Irish, are mandatory and require a minimum of 240 hours of learning. History has been added to the list and will require a minimum of 200 hours learning. The other 17 subjects remain optional, within the overall requirement to study up to a maximum of 10 subjects.

The NCCA is also being asked to develop a short course in History for certain students with general learning difficulties/needs. Students in this category will not be required to study the subject ahead of the new short course being made available in September 2021.

Schools are being advised by Departmental circular letter of the practical arrangements for the implementation of the Minister’s decision to accord History special core status.

Source: education.ie

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