It was very gratifying recently to hear the Minister for Health, Micheal Martin, a distinguished UCC graduate and a distinguished postgraduate of the history department, speak with enthusiasm to our first-year students on the topic "Why study history?"

Abandoning his script completely, as far as I could judge, he emphasised the importance of an historical training for his role as a minister, first in education and now in health. His work as a postgraduate helped him to sift evidence, evaluate competing points of view and arrive at a professional judgment.

The Minister also spoke about how his historical training prepared him to deal with the large volume of departmental files, briefing documents and cabinet memoranda. His study of the subject permitted him to grasp the essence of a problem quickly and to cut through mountains of paper with confidence.

This positive picture of history as a subject is a far cry from 1995, when Niamh Bhreathnach published a White Paper, Changing Our Educational Future, in which history appeared to have been dropped as a core subject from the junior cycle - an irony which was not lost on the late Labour TD and outstanding local historian Jim Kemmy, who made his opinion known with feeling at the time to the Labour Minister for Education. Mr Kemmy also made his opposition known to me on a train journey to Dublin. I knew that I was speaking to the converted, and the converted won the day and won that battle. The end of history was avoided.

In the intervening five years, history has survived within the curriculum on the Junior and Leaving Certificate cycles. But it has not thrived, despite the determined professional efforts of many dedicated teacher/historians.

However, 21.2 per cent did Leaving Certificate history in 1999, according to the Minister's script. Despite the unfavourable climate of the 1990s, there is every reason to feel that history as a subject will show signs of recovery. The ignorance in the 1990s which was at the heart of the "philosophy" of the "Enterprise Culture", is now replaced by the views expressed by Micheal Martin. The simplistic utilitarian claptrap of those years has been permanently consigned to the dustbin of history - I hope.

Sean O Mordha's Seven Ages series on RTE was watched by about 400,000 per episode, many of those young people who viewed all seven programmes. That must be a source of satisfaction to beleagured history teachers who found their subject under threat due, in part, to glib disinformation and misunderstanding of the subject. There is further reason for optimism: the revised Leaving Certificate history syllabus is now in its fifth draft - or, at least, so rumour has it (it would be nice for the UCC department of history to have an opportunity to get sight of this document and make a considered contribution to a text which, rumour has it, looks exciting and challenging). But more about that later.

Much could be done immediately to allow the young historical minds of this State to demonstrate their real analytical talent at Leaving Certificate. An extra 20 minutes has been added this year to the three hours allowed for the writing of five answers, one being a project. Why ask students to write five answers? That is only roughly a half-hour a question when one takes out time for reading the paper carefully. An extra 20 minutes is welcome but not the answer to the problem.

A strong argument could be made for the reduction of the number of questions to three on the day - another question, as the new syllabus provides, being submitted in the form of a portfolio/project prior to examination day. I hope also that the broad and non-specific form of some of the questions on the 1999 Leaving Certificate paper will never be allowed to appear again.

I recall the following: "Discuss the part played by Michael Davitt (1846-1905) in Irish affairs;" "Discuss the contribution of Arthur Griffith, 1871-1922, to Irish political life;" or my all time favourite, "Assess the contribution of William T. Cosgrave (1880-1965) to Irish affairs."

The central difficulty with all these questions is that the student is immediately thrown by the dates. Or, at least, I certainly would be. What would I have to say, for example, about Cosgrave's early life or, for that matter, about his contribution to public affairs after his retirement as leader of Fine Gael during the second World War? It would have been much better to focus the question by narrowing the dates to the period 19161932 or to 1932-1944.

I have never been a particular supporter of the "catch the student out" philosophy of examining. After a paper, one hears the conversation: "Hitler didn't come up." "There was no question on Mussolini." "I had banked on de Valera and neutrality being on the paper" and so on. I agree with Joe Lee when he wrote last year, "Major subjects should appear on papers year after year. One learns to think historically mainly by addressing the big questions on the major topics."

Finally, there is the question of the scope of the course. I hope that the new syllabus allows students to study the history of the 1990s in Ireland and abroad. The ending of the Cold War is a major turning point in the history of the 20th century. History will have a far greater appeal if the syllabus is opened up to the major historical personalities and movements in 20th-century Africa, Asia and Latin America.

I hope also that students will be in a position to study the history of the 1990s in Ireland. In an ethos and culture of freedom of information, Leaving Certificate history students would, if they so chose, make a significant contribution, with their research topics, to an understanding of our recent past.

They would also learn the value of historical method in the study of contemporary Ireland, where more and more primary sources are now available. For those who sat yesterday's Leaving Certificate paper, the time for giving advice is long over. It is now time for self-belief and confidence in the thoroughness of your preparation. Did you think historically? You have been trained to do so. Did you use your knowledge, your judgment and your historical imagination? You have been educated to do so. Remember you have been trained to think as historians, not what to think.

You have studied a subject which has been responsible for training many of the great minds in public affairs through the centuries. Enjoy the discipline that history offers you for the rest of your life, be it as a future Minister for Health or whatever your chosen craft might happen to be.

The discipline of history is an intellectual tool which is a necessity not merely for the Leaving but for a lifetime.

Professor Dermot Keogh is head of the history department at University College Cork and author of Twentieth Century Ireland, Ireland and the Vatican, 1922-1960 and, most recently, Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees and the Holocaust.