History as a second-level school subject is in trouble again. It is only three years since the then minister, Ms Niamh Bhreathnach, had to back-pedal on proposals to drop it as a core subject at Junior Certificate level.

This week the row over the alleged difficulty of this year's higher level Leaving Certificate paper rumbles on, with angry parents and teachers telling tales of devastated teenagers and phoning up the Department of Education demanding to know how they can register a formal complaint.

Department officials are unapologetic. They point out that John O'Sullivan, the history convenor of the largest secondary teachers' union, ASTI, had originally welcomed the paper before he was inundated with phone calls from his members.

A spokesman said of the 25-30 calls received by the Department's exam branch, 90 per cent came from the east coast and a quarter were from people complaining on behalf of repeat students. The clear implication was that many of the students complaining had been "coached" by their teachers to cover only certain parts of the syllabus, and were suffering the consequences.

One of the complaints was that the old faithfuls of Parnell, Bismarck and Lemass did not come up. Department officials pointed out that all these gentlemen featured last year and therefore teachers should have warned their students against expecting them again.

"The biggest problem in Leaving Cert history is that the `grind school' mentality rules the roost," said another senior official. He said every topic this year had come up in Leaving Cert papers in the past 10 years, and "anyone teaching students to honours level should have prepared them for that paper".

Several university historians disagreed. One criticised the unfairly general nature of some of the questions, asking how a student could be expected to write about the 85 years of William T. Cosgrave's life when there was not even a full biography of the man.

There is no doubt that history remains one of the most problematic subjects on the curriculum. Earlier this year a new draft history syllabus was sent back to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment after widespread dissatisfaction was expressed that it was far too specialised for a broad-based exam like the Leaving Cert.

The perception remains that history is a difficult, low points subject - unlike geography, which is seen by the "grind schools" as one of the easier options, although it too has been the subject of controversy this year.

Opinions differ on the significance of the decline in the numbers taking Leaving Certificate history. Senior academics believe it is as high as 20 per cent over the past decade, although the Department's figures appear to show that - with the exception of 1995 - it has hovered around 15,000 for the past 12 years.

Whatever the figures, there will be many history teachers who will echo the concern expressed by five teachers from the midlands in a letter to The Irish Times this week.

They said they were "gravely concerned" about the "adverse impact" this year's "unfair" paper would have "on the status of history in what has become a very crowded curriculum". Other teachers are worried that with the drive towards technology, maths and languages, history will become like Latin, a subject which is seen as irrelevant in today's high-speed, materialistic world.

The professor of modern history at UCD, Dr Thomas Bartlett, echoes the Department when he blames "question spotting" for the kind of problems which affected this year's paper. "Students prepare a narrow range of topics, and sooner or later the wheel of fortune turns, their prepared questions don't come up, and they're adversely affected."

HOWEVER, he recalls from his time as an examiner of GCE A Level history in Northern Ireland an occasion in the mid-1970s when there was a very narrow and obscure range of questions about the French revolutionary period. The examiners clearly marked the papers indulgently because there was no noticeable dip in grades that year.

He believes students are often the worst judges of how they have done in exams. "Sometimes it is better if a student has to think hard about a question rather than trot out a prepared answer - the result may be a much more thoughtful response."

UCC professor Dr Dermot Keogh has a number of concerns. Firstly he worries that the decline in the numbers taking the subject will affect students' "formation as citizens".

On the specific issue of the Leaving Certificate exam, he wonders why students have to take five questions in three hours, when students at degree level take only three in the same time. "What impact does that have on the quality of answering?" he asks.

He feels Leaving Certificate examiners' names should be on the papers in the way they are on university exam papers in order to ensure greater accountability.

His colleague Prof Joe Lee says anyone concerned about "Irish identities in the next millennium" should be concerned about the decline in those taking history at school.

"In a period of such rapid technological change and globalisation, a nation's sense of self-respect and of community becomes all the more important. That must be based on a sound knowledge and an informed perspective on where we come from and where we want to be."