LEAVING Cert history is in decline, according to Dermot Lucey, editor of , the journal of the History Teachers' Association of Ireland. In all, between higher and ordinary level Leaving Cert history there was an 8 per cent decline in the number of students doing history in one year, he says. There was a 600 student fall-off in the number of students who took the higher course history paper compared with last year. "It is time we and others who have a direct or indirect interest in history came together to first of all stop, and then reverse, the declining status of history in our schools," he writes.

He recalls the anger of teachers after the Leaving Cert higher-level history exam in June and blames Department officials whose efforts "to undermine critics and to protect a bad paper" are "backfiring".

"If there was an average of 20 students per class, then almost 6,000 history teaching hours were lost with a reduced demand for history teachers. Does this decline reflect the bad history results of two years ago in 1997? Why does "history" continue to shoot itself in the foot? he asks.