ABSTRACT
Secondary schools in Ireland cater for students between the ages of 12 and 18 years. While education is not compulsory for students over 15 years of age, 90% of 16-year-olds and 74% of 17-year-olds attend school. The comprehensivization of curricula in the 1960s served to increase the emphasis on technical and ‘vocational’ subjects in school curricula. It was felt that this would have economic benefits as well as personal ones. Curricula are organized on the basis of subjects or disciplines. Schools can choose from about 30 subjects. The majority of students study eight or nine subjects during their first three years in a second-level school and seven or eight during their final two or three years. The analysis revealed that the educational system in Ireland had been heavily influenced by the ‘new mathematics’ of the 1960s based on the Bourbaki tradition, which placed a heavy emphasis on algebra and modern symbolism.
