Sir, - I should like, as a sociologist, to add my voice to those already calling for the retention of history as a compulsory subject in the Junior Certificate.
A knowledge of the basic outline of Irish, European and - if possible - world history is the indispensable foundation for most other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Many of those, like sociology, can be read from scratch at tertiary level, but they have to build on a knowledge of what happened, where and in what sequence in the past, without which no effective understanding of the world in which we live today is possible.
Before coming to Ireland I taught sociology in Britain and Australia. Quite a number of my Australian students seemed to believe that "Middle Ages" referred to an undifferentiated period lasting from the palaeolithic through to 1900. Many of my British students had acquired the simplistic mish mash that constitutes "Sociology" at O level and A level, most of which had to be untaught at university. In general, it seems to me that students arrive at UCD far more adequately prepared. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. - Yours, etc.,
Department of Sociology, University College,
Dublin.