THE NEW Leaving Cert syllabus in English will probably not be introduced until next year that is, autumn 1997 according to sources close to the course committee. As a result, the new course will not be examined until the year 1999.
The course, which has drawn equal measure of praise and criticism, as well as being subject to lengthy delays, is intended as a follow on from the new Junior Cert programme. It takes a broader, more interdisciplinary approach to the subject than previous syllabuses. At the same time, the latest draft of the syllabus strongly emphasises the merits of "good English".
"All students will be expected to be assiduous in their attention to paragraphing, syntax, spelling and punctuation," it says, in a warning more explicit than in any previous draft.
Earlier drafts drew praise for being more in tune with the times, but were also criticised for various reasons some said there was too little emphasis on grammar, others bemoaned the fact that Shakespeare was not compulsory, while there were also attacks on the presence of Roddy Doyle in the list of authors and on the lack of women writers.
Among those with reservations on the earlier draft drawn up by the NCCA course committee was the Minister for Education, who on two occasions asked the committee to look at their proposals once again. The result is a new draft, which places a new emphasis on the element of proper English and says that the study of a Shakespearean work will be compulsory at higher level.
The result of these discussions is that the introduction of the new syllabus has been delayed by at least a year. A further year's delay now seems inevitable, as many other programmes including the Leaving Cert applied programme and relationships and sexuality education are being introduced or expanded in the schools this autumn.
"We've already learned that it can be counter productive to bring in too many innovations in schools at the one time. With a programme as important as English, it would be better to wait a year and get things right, rather than rushing it in this autumn," says John White, assistant general secretary of the ASTI.
The list of texts appended to the latest draft (see below) finds no place for Roddy Doyle nor, for that matter, James Joyce. Of the 34 books listed, more than half are by living authors 10 are by women writers and 15 are, broadly speaking, Irish. While not exactly turning the classical Western canon on its head, the list manages to include one book from China and one from Africa.
At higher level, students will have to study four texts one long text from among King Lear, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Antigone, and a comparative study of three others. The prescribed modes of comparison are themes and issues literary genre and cultural context.
Six films are also included for study as "texts". One of these, My Left Foot, is Irish, and Hollywood is scarcely represented.
In poetry, Seamus Heaney, Eayan Boland and Michael Lonley are the Irish poets on the list, which also includes a raft of Shakespearean sonnets, as well as Dickinson, Keats, Larkin and arguably the least known writer, Elizabeth Bishop.
At ordinary level, the number of poems on the list is similar, but there is a far wider spread of authors.
The list finds favour with the UCD feminist critic Ailbhe Smyth, who told E&L it was "innovative and in some ways adventurous". See suggests all students should cover the wider range of poetry listed at ordinary level, and expresses disappointment that the films are "not terribly exciting". Worse, she says, none of them is the work of a woman director.
The NCCA is expected to approve the new syllabus within the next few months, after which it will he submitted to the Minister for her approval.
