Philosophy · Leaving Certificate
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Philosophy for the Leaving Certificate
A proposal for introducing Philosophy as a Leaving Certificate subject
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Why now

The Irish Senior Cycle curriculum is being redeveloped right now, and the NCCA has already added subjects that didn't exist a decade ago. Philosophy is an important part of that conversation.

Irish students get little focused training in constructing an argument, telling valid reasoning from invalid, weighing competing ethical claims, or judging how they come to know what they think they know. These are skills used daily in law, technology, medicine, journalism, business and public life, whatever a student goes on to do. That training is more relevant now than ever, given how quickly generative AI has influenced how students approach schoolwork. Philosophy is also one of the least expensive subjects the NCCA could add: no labs, no equipment, no capital cost — only a curriculum, a teacher-training pathway, and an exam.

This Can Work

Exhibit A

Politics & Society

Launched in 41 pilot schools in September 2016 with no existing cohort of specialist teachers. Uptake grew from 867 students sitting the exam in 2018 to over 3,000 in 2025. It's the clearest working proof the NCCA can do exactly this.

Exhibit B

International Precedent

It is standard practice everywhere else. The UK (A-Level Philosophy), France (the Philosophy Baccalauréat), Italy, Finland, Germany, Poland, and Spain all already teach philosophy at second level, and Aotearoa New Zealand is currently adding it. Full links below in Useful links.

The case has been made here once already: The Royal Irish Academy proposed this to the NCCA in February 2012, citing a 1991 ESRI survey in which only 19% of Irish school-leavers felt prepared to play a responsible part in society. Ireland has also run a 100-hour Junior Cycle Philosophy short course since 2016. This isn't starting from zero, and former President Michael D. Higgins has repeatedly backed the idea publicly.

The research

A primary survey of Irish students, teachers, graduates and employers is running alongside this proposal to further the research below.

$52.6k → $94.3k Highest early- and mid-career salary of any humanities major graduate in the United States. APA / PayScale
3.2% Unemployment Highly resilient career tracks, outperforming finance grads (3.7%) and computer science grads (6.1%). NY Fed, 2025
#2 LSAT · Top GRE Second highest mean score of any major on the LSAT, alongside top-tier quantitative and verbal performance on the GRE. LSAC / ETS
Selection effect, or does it actually train you?

The obvious objection: maybe philosophy just attracts strong thinkers, rather than making them. A 2025 study tracking 649,511 US undergraduates controlled for incoming SAT scores and found a real residual training effect — philosophy majors outscored non-majors on the GRE Verbal by 33 points and the LSAT by 2 points after controlling for incoming ability, and ranked first of 57 majors on a composite measure of intellectual rigour and open-mindedness. Prinzing & Vazquez (2025), open access.

Primary Survey Research

We are actively collecting Irish-centric data to establish demand among prospective students, assess workforce readiness among practicing teachers, and gather views from local employers. Please contribute your perspective to help build this comprehensive evidence base.

Take the primary survey →

Proposed syllabus

Strand A

Logic & Critical Thinking

Validity and soundness, common fallacies, informal reasoning, an introduction to argument-mapping and proof.

Strand B

Ethics & Social Philosophy

The major ethical frameworks, applied to contemporary case studies in personal and public life.

Strand C

Epistemology & Philosophy of Science

Knowledge, belief and evidence; distinguishing science from pseudoscience; the limits of science.

Strand D

Metaphysics & Philosophy of Mind

What is real? Personal identity and free will. Can machines think?

Assessment: a terminal written paper plus a 40% Additional Assessment Component — a project, portfolio, or structured oral discussion, externally assessed by the SEC — matching the standard the NCCA now applies to every redeveloped Senior Cycle subject.

Who would teach it

Logic overlaps with Maths and Computer Science; Ethics overlaps with Religious Education, CSPE and Politics & Society; Epistemology and Philosophy of Science overlap with Physics, Chemistry and Biology. A CPD conversion course — the same model used for Politics & Society — could qualify existing teachers directly.

There's a second, larger pool too: only 34% of philosophy PhD graduates take a permanent academic position (APDA, 2021). A great many capable, subject-expert teachers currently have nowhere stable to go — philosophers of maths, language, science, religion and logic among them, all able to cover adjacent subjects too. A substantial teaching worforce already exists, underused.

Common questions

Will there be enough teachers?

Yes — existing teachers can cross-train via CPD, as happened for Politics & Society, and Ireland has a large pool of philosophy PhDs without permanent academic posts.

Will enough students choose it?

This doesn't need to be a large subject. Uptake comparable to Politics & Society's roughly 3,000 candidates in 2025 would already be a success. That said, Philosophy is growing in popularity, and our currently running survey is assesing students liklihood to choose the subject.

Isn't it too abstract for Senior Cycle?

The syllabus is built around concrete questions — can machines think? what is real? which arguments are sound? — and the 40% AAC rewards applied reasoning and discussion, not just written exposition.

Would it cost schools anything?

No labs, specialist equipment, or capital investment, and the Transition Year pilot phase needs no full NCCA sign-off before a school opts in.

How would it be assessed?

A terminal exam paper plus a 40% Additional Assessment Component, externally assessed by the State Examinations Commission — the NCCA's current standard for new Senior Cycle subjects.

Realistic path

NowPhase 1 · TY pilot
NextPhase 2 · NCCA submission
LaterPhase 3 · LC subject

Immediate next steps:

Get involved

Schools

One Transition Year coordinator or principal willing to pilot a module using a shared framework.

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Teachers & unions

A statement of interest in principle from ASTI or TUI, and teachers willing to help shape a CPD pathway.

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Societies & departments

Formal endorsement and expert input on the syllabus from philosophy departments and relevant bodies.

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The public

Sign the petition to the Minister for Education and the NCCA, and share your voice in our active community survey.

Sign the petition → Take the survey →

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