Education

IFA calls for Leaving Cert course to recognise agriculture’s ‘environmental credentials’

Organisation says famers are being ‘vilified’ as the sole cause of climate change while minister says it’s time to move away from 'adversarial’ positions on the issue

Simon Harris, Minister for Further and Higher Education: said the formulation of the leaving cert was not his responsibility, but that he thought the IFA was engaging in good faith.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has called for a planned new Leaving Cert module on climate action to recognise the “environmental credentials of Irish agriculture”.

Alice Doyle, the IFA Farm Family Committee chair, and Jackie Whelan Fagan, IFA regional executive, lobbied Simon Harris, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) earlier this year about the formulation of a new subject entitled Climate Action and Sustainable Development.