Reader's Blog: Oireachtas abandoning teaching of politics
As a teacher of civic, social and political education (CSPE) I am experiencing the abandonment by two of the houses of the Oireachtas of state certification of political education at junior certificate level. The only subject to completely lose state certification in the Junior Cert reform debacle through an examination is CSPE (Politics).
There was much political waffle and tricolour flag commemoration in 2016 coupled with reading of the 1916 proclamation. During this period, the State on the southern side of the border, which owes its creation to this event, was overtly divorcing CSPE from all other subjects at Junior Cert level, by refusing to give the subject state certification.
Why do those who legislate feel so comfortable with removing politics from state certification when it is the one subject with a direct link to the stated concept of democracy in the syllabus and a whole unit of the course entitled “The State-Ireland”?
Is there not enough distrust of the political establishment at youth level without adding to it without this stroke?
We sometimes hear the case for lowering the voting age to 16.
Approximately 60,000 students under 16 years of age sit the Junior Cert each year which is the last chance the whole cohort will receive political education as a core subject. State certification removal devalues the subject and puts it into the category of the long lost subject of “civics” which was not taken seriously by the students or the schools who purported to have it on the timetable.
Successive ministers of education of recent vintage seem to fear the active citizenship so heavily promoted by the CSPE course so perhaps it is best to nip it in the bud. The present minister will point to the introduction of the laudable elective subject of Politics and Society at leaving cert level but he knows full well in the present curriculum it will only have a penetration rate of about 5% at maximum of the 60,000-plus students at junior cert level, as the trained personnel and resources are not there to implement it.
Make no mistake about it; those who want a subject to be taken seriously know full well that having state certification of a subject increases the status of a subject.
The long-awaited introduction of PE as a state certified subject at leaving cert level is testament to that and the reverse of that is obvious to our political masters too. President Higgins in office has been very supportive of the subject of history on the curriculum and decried efforts to sideline it. Only one of the five other presidential candidates is a member of the Oireachtas and unelected at that.
As presidential candidates I would call on all of them to debate the abandonment and devaluation of Politics and History at junior cert level which both government and opposition have engaged in.
The third house of the Oireachtas is directly elected by the citizens. Cherish the citizens
Brendan Greene
Castlerea
Co Roscommon
