Despite this, 10% of students failed maths this year, and Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has pledged to bring back bonus points for those entering engineering and science courses who do honours Maths in the exams.

But university heads have already professed their exasperation at a generation of students entering third level under the current Leaving Cert programme who cannot work maths problems out for themselves, don't know basic grammar and are unsure of Irish geography.

Forty years ago, Irish students studied under a very different curriculum that placed emphasis on mental arithmetic, familiarity with Irish and British geography and the ability to identify principal and subordinate clauses in sentences. But are these skills still necessary?

Below, the Sunday Tribune compares Leaving Cert exam papers from 1963, 1987 and 2007 and examines how teaching and learning has changed in Ireland in the last 40 years.

GEOGRAPHY

The geography curriculum in 1963 was a tough one and wasn't helped by boring textbooks with few illustrations, according to James Staunton, geography convenor for the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI).

Pupils had two-and-a-half hours to answer five questions, including an obligatory question where students were given a map of a part of the world and told to name the rivers, islands, towns and seaports that were marked.

Students were also asked to describe the physical geography of Wicklow or Donegal and discuss the locations of the shipbuilding industry in the UK.

"A huge emphasis was placed around this time on physical or locational geography and things such as latitude and longitude, " said Staunton.

"Students were expected to know where places were in the world, including rivers and mountains and to be able to discuss how these features came about. The textbooks were quite horrendous to read through . . . laborious and incredibly detailed with few pictures or stimulatory information."

In the '60s, before Ireland joined the EU, students were well-versed on Irish and British geography. By contrast, when the new curriculum was brought in during the '70s, European geography dominated the syllabus and Irish geography was confined to the primary school classroom.

This new curriculum, which lasted for over 30 years, was problematic in many ways. "The problem was with the exam structure, " said Staunton.

"Students in 1987 had to do map work but they were allowed choose between physical, social and economic geography. A pre-prepared fieldwork question almost always appeared under economic geography, meaning students and teachers could cut this out and also leave out either physical or social geography."

As the points race for university took hold, students and teachers quickly realised there were ways to avoid whole chunks of the geography curriculum, meaning a student could do well in the exam without ever knowing how a glacier was formed or which cities dominated the north of Italy.

During this period, the number of students receiving honours marks in geography went up by 20% and it was finally decided at the start of the decade to review the syllabus. The result was the new exam which students took last year for the first time.

"This is much broader, starting with 12 short questions that students must answer 10 of, " said Staunton. "It means that there is a lot more to cover and it isn't done to the same depth that we might have seen in the 1960s, but they also come out with a broader knowledge."

These days, students study multinational companies, overpopulation, world hunger and how migration can affect racial patterns . . . topics that would never have made it near a geography paper in the '60s. And last year, the number of students achieving honours in geography went down by 4%.

"This is a tough exam, " said Staunton.

"They have closed off the loopholes of the last 30 years and students and teachers have a lot more ground to cover. But it is innovative and interesting and designed to last for the next 15 years."

MATHEMATICS

In 1963, maths Leaving Cert students had to sit three papers . . . one devoted to arithmetic, one to algebra and one to geometry, each exam lasting two-and-ahalf hours. "There was a huge emphasis on students working out problems for themselves and a lot of time in the classroom was devoted to this for the arithmetic paper, " said Eileen Scanlon, the ASTI's maths convenor.

The students of 1963 were some of the last of their generation to study Euclidean geometry, which was dropped when the new syllabus was introduced in 1969 and replaced by modern-day geometry. Arithmetic also took a fall, as the three papers were merged into two and algebra gained in importance.

"With arithmetic left out of the curriculum, problem-solving became less important, " said Scanlon. "And when the syllabus changed again in 1993, there was a whole new definition of learning objectives. More emphasis was placed on knowledge regurgitation and comprehension than problem-solving and it wasn't just the syllabus that changed."

Between 1963 and 1993, students acquired double the number of subjects and less and less time was devoted to maths. Consequently, teaching changed from allowing students to work out problems themselves to presenting them with the answer.

"With the importance of points for college, it became all about giving students the answer on demand to the detriment of problem-solving, " said Scanlon. "The course was made much easier and that is a mistake we made. We thought making the course easier would make the course better, but we were wrong. We should have looked at bringing in harder problems while allowing more time for dealing with them."

For the third time in 40 years, the maths syllabus is in the process of being revised, as examiners attempt to cut out rote-learning and bring back independent thinking. By 2010, it should be rolled out nationwide in both senior and junior cycle.

"Maths is a challenging subject, but while it may be difficult, it is also within the grasp of everyone, " said Scanlon.

"It just needs a bit more time."

Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain, former Rose of Tralee and science ambassador agreed. "I was going to drop down to ordinary level in 6th year but my dad wouldn't let me, " she said. "So I kept practising and practising and eventually it just clicked. I grew to love it then and I was so glad I stuck with it, because it is such an important subject to have."

ENGLISH

The English exam in the 1960s was an entirely different proposition to the test students are faced with today. Leaving Cert honours students in 1963 were expected to dissect sentences and identify clauses, re-write lengthy passages and write an essay on 'the pleasures of poetry.'

"This exam reflects a time when Ireland was more dominated by the tradition of education that came from England, " said English convenor Sheila Parsons.

"Students were not expected to engage with a piece of writing and it's hard to imagine a 17- or 18-year-old finding anything interesting in the passages that appear in the exam. Instead, emphasis was placed on understanding the English language, but never emotionally engaging with it."

Students were asked to explain the meaning of words such as 'expository' and 'draughtsmanship' in a passage about the relationship between writers and painters, before being told to break down a long sentence about wasp-nesting.

"The language in this exam was incredibly turgid and the comprehension was incredibly demanding, " said Parsons. "Parsing sentences was something that was dropped quite soon after this exam and while it looks difficult, it was simply a question of learning how to do it. It wasn't any use in later life."

By 1987 therefore, students were no longer analysing grammar and parsing sentences. Instead, they were taught how to use grammar in the junior cycle and marks were taken off for incorrect usage and spellings. And while in 1963 they were expected to re-write comprehension passages, in 1987 they were expected to explain the writer's meaning.

"The passages students had to deal with by 1987 were much more accessible than the '60s, " said Parsons. "But they were demanding in a different way, such as through the writer's use of metaphors, which required a higher level of English."

The curriculum change in 2001 was geared to equip students with a different set of skills thought to be more relevant today . . . those of emotionally engaging with the writer, contrasting and comparing writer's works, knowing the appropriate tone required for the essay and the ability to grasp current affairs.

But the continuing lack of emphasis on the need for good grammar has dismayed many academics, particularly at third level.

English students this year were asked to write on the idealism and passions of youth, write a radio presentation on the changes they welcome in the world and compose a student council election leaflet.

"Each paper is difficult in its own way, " said Parsons. "What has really changed throughout the years are the skills that need to be learned. The current exam is the best, in my opinion, because it's much broader, much more connected with real life events and requires a high level of emotional understanding."