How lessons get forgotten between 1960 and 2005

How lessons get lost. One of the children we are helping through school came up to the house to get money she needed to buy science books, Science now being compulsory for the first four years of secondary schooling. (I have just learned that science is no longer compulsory in Irish secondary school, I find that unbelievable after the experience of the 70s and 80s when the availability of well trained science competent people was so important to the development of the Celtic Tiger). But we talked about many things and one was the incidence of malaria in the school which I know is quite substantial. They have on the school premises stagnant water which they know is where the mosquuitoes breed but have done nothing. In the 60s up to independence and a few years after, it was illegal to have stagnant water but if it was necessary then it had to be sprayed with oil which drowns the mosquito lavae. The councils had operatives who spent their time checking drainage, spraying water surfaces and generally ensuring that breeding oportunities were kept to a minimum. Now when the population is five times higher and the incidence of malaria is shocking none of the things which could be done to eleviate the scurge are being done. Instead the Ministry of Health is trying to get permission to use DDT which will do irreparable damage to the agricultural sector; and it not necessary. In our house which has a well drained compound and the bananas and maize are well away we have only seen twenty mosquitoes in the last two years. Obviously if you live beside a swamp, because you need water then there is a genuine problem. But, environmental management could do a great deal to reduce the problem.