Cosain an Cóimheas
March 23, 2011
Postanna i nGaelscoileanna faoi bhagairt
March 22, 2011
Over 50% of the country “able to speak Irish”
March 22, 2011
According to a recent opinion poll by Lastminute.com on language skills in Ireland, over half of those interviewed claimed to have fluent Irish.
The highest proficiency in Irish was observed amongst those in the 18-25 age group, with 56% claiming fluency.
1,000 participants were involved in this study, and the results showed that 54% of those in Connacht/Ulster were fluent in Irish, compared to 46% in Dublin,/Leintster. and 45% in Munster.
Of those who could speak Irish, 46% had spoken Irish in the past week, and 21% had spoken Irish in the past month. Of the 18-25 age group, 57% had spoken Irish the same week in which the survey was conducted.
This national survey conducted by Lastminute.com comes hot on the heels of an Ipsos/MRBI poll which was published in February, where 1,000 respondents over the age of 15 were interviewed about their attitude towards the Irish language, and its compulsory status at Leaving Cert level in particular.
57% of participants thought that it was important that children in Ireland are brought up learning Irish. Amongst the age group 25-34 69% thought it was important that children in Ireland are brought up learning Irish.
61% thought that Irish should be taught up to Leaving Certificate level. 65% felt that more subjects should be taught through Irish in primary schools to encourage children to use the language more often. And amongst the age group 15-24, 79% thought more subjects should be taught through Irish in primary schools.
In another question about the Leaving Certificate 61% thought that Irish should be compulsory up to Leaving Certificate Level.
The figures above demonstrate, that not only are Irish people supportive of the language, but that the majority support the teaching of Irish as a compulsory subject until Leaving Cert level, and that younger generations have a high level of fluency in the language. These results will give hope to the promotion of the Irish language in the future.
According to a recent opinion poll by Lastminute.com on language skills in Ireland, over half of those interviewed claimed to have fluent Irish.
The highest proficiency in Irish was observed amongst those in the 18-25 age group, with 56% claiming fluency.
1,000 participants were involved in this study, and the results showed that 54% of those in Connacht/Ulster were fluent in Irish, compared to 46% in Dublin,/Leintster. and 45% in Munster.
Of those who could speak Irish, 46% had spoken Irish in the past week, and 21% had spoken Irish in the past month. Of the 18-25 age group, 57% had spoken Irish the same week in which the survey was conducted.
This national survey conducted by Lastminute.com comes hot on the heels of an Ipsos/MRBI poll which was published in February, where 1,000 respondents over the age of 15 were interviewed about their attitude towards the Irish language, and its compulsory status at Leaving Cert level in particular.
57% of participants thought that it was important that children in Ireland are brought up learning Irish. Amongst the age group 25-34 69% thought it was important that children in Ireland are brought up learning Irish.
61% thought that Irish should be taught up to Leaving Certificate level. 65% felt that more subjects should be taught through Irish in primary schools to encourage children to use the language more often. And amongst the age group 15-24, 79% thought more subjects should be taught through Irish in primary schools.
In another question about the Leaving Certificate 61% thought that Irish should be compulsory up to Leaving Certificate Level.
The figures above demonstrate, that not only are Irish people supportive of the language, but that the majority support the teaching of Irish as a compulsory subject until Leaving Cert level, and that younger generations have a high level of fluency in the language. These results will give hope to the promotion of the Irish language in the future.
CAER conference – 24-26 March 2011
March 21, 2011
Téama – Áit na mionteangacha i bhforbairt an ilteangachais
Theme – The place of minority languages in the development of multilingualism
Ionad: Óstán Skylon, Baile Átha Cliath
Venue: The Skylon Hotel, Dublin
Clár/ Programme
24.3.11
17.00
Oscailt oifigiúil/ official opening
17.45
Muireann Ní Mhóráin, Príomhfheidhmeannach COGG – Stádas na Gaeilge sa chóras oideachais in Éireann/ The status of the Irish language in the education system in Ireland.
20.00
Dinnéar/ Dinner
25.3.11
10.00
David Little, Trinity College, Dublin – Developing plurilingual citizens in multilingual societies: the role of regional and minority languages
11.30
Tae/ caifé
12.00
Le cinntiú/ tbc – Dúshláin an ghaeloideachas in Éireann – impleachtaí d’oideachas mhiontheangacha san Eorap?/ Challanges to Irish-medium education in Ireland – implications for minority language education in Europe?
13.15
Lón/lunch
14.30
Painéal cainteoirí re téama – Straitéisí Rialtais agus tacaíochtaí d’fhorbairt an tumoideachas miontheangaigh– Tuaisceart Éireann, Tír na mBascach, An Bhreatain Bheag – cur i láthair 20 nóiméad an duine & plé oscailte/ panel of speakers about the theme – Government strategies and supports for the development of minority language immersion education- Northern Ireland (Seán Ó Coinn, Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta), The Basque Country (Jasone Aldekoa Arana, Dep. Of Education, The Basque Autonomous Community ), Wales (Gari Lewis, Welsh Language Bord) – 20 minute presentation and open discussion
16.00
Críoch & tae/ caifé/ finish & tea/ coffee
16.30
Cur i láthair ó scoileanna an cheantair/ presentation from local schools
20.30
Dinnéar
25.9.10
10.00
Cruinniú Cinn Bliana CAER/ CAER AGM
12.30
Lón/ lunch
Suas le 40 Gaelscoil chun múinteoirí a chailleadh
March 21, 2011
Increase in pupil-teacher ratio
March 21, 2011
A chara, – There is a lot of focus during Seachtain na Gaeilge on the state of the language in the country. Gaelscoileanna are the most hopeful thing we have with regard to the promotion, learning and preservation of Gaeilge. Yet the Department of Education has announced a significant increase in the pupil-teacher ratio in Gaelscoileanna from next September.
I am chairperson of Gaelscoil Phádraig in Ballybrack, Co Dublin. According to the new schedule for appointment and retention of teachers, from September 2011 we will lose one post. Also on the basis of the old figures we would be entitled to employ an extra teacher meaning that our principal would not have to continue teaching a class and fulfilling an ever- increasing administrative role.
Gaelscoil Phádraig is in a disadvantaged area, but we do not have disadvantaged status which all other schools in the area have. We are housed on a small temporary site in prefab classrooms. How can anyone justify an increase in the pupil-teacher ratio of 20 pupils? Yes, an increase of 20. For example, according to the new schedule the number of pupils required to employ or maintain a 6th teacher rises from 153 to 173. How can the Department of Education defend that?
I have a great grá for Gaelscoil Phádraig and I am extremely proud of it. I see the great work being done by the teachers. I see the wonderful progress being made by the children. I see how happy they are and I hear them chatting to each other in Irish outside the classrooms. An increase of 20 in the pupil teacher ratio is not acceptable for these children. – Is mise,
HILDA de ROISTE,
(Cathaoirleach),
Gaelscoil Phádraig,
Ascaill Shíleann,
Baile Breac,
Co Átha Cliath.
Ruane: Teach Irish in every Northern Ireland school
March 21, 2011
Education Minister Caitriona Ruane has caused fury after claiming that every school pupil in Northern Ireland should be given the opportunity to learn the Irish language.
In an outspoken interview with the Belfast Telegraph, the controversial minister also claimed that she wanted the local schools system brought closer together with that in the Republic – which would mean the scrapping of GCSE and A-level exams. And in remarks that will anger thousands of parents whose children are caught up in the confusion of the unregulated testing system for entrance to secondary schools, Ms Ruane declared that “the debate on academic selection is now over”. In 2009 the Belfast Telegraph launched its Sit Down, Sort It Out campaign which appealed for the Executive to put their differences aside to reach an agreed solution over transfer. This followed the decision to scrap the 11-plus without any agreed and regulated system of transferring between primary and secondary schools put in its place.
But far from showing any contrition over the uncertainty which surrounds the transfer process, Ms Ruane instead claimed that ending the 11-plus was her “proudest achievement”. Ms Ruane also blamed the grammar system for the high level of Northern Ireland pupils leaving education without basic qualifications – remarks which are sure to poison the relationship between schools and the minister even further. The minister told the Belfast Telegraph: “Well, first of all, the old system has gone and one of my proudest achievements is ending the 11-plus. The breakaway tests operated by the grammar schools should not be happening, they should not be doing those tests and they should not be placing barriers in front of children to prevent them from getting into their schools. “What I would say to the schools is stop doing it. What I would say to the parents is tell the grammar schools that they should not be erecting barriers for their children to have to climb over.” Ms Ruane also indicated that she would like to remain as Education Minister after the May election and set out some of her priorities in a new Assembly term.
She said: “I would like to see the option to learn Irish. I do think we are moving to a situation in our society where more young people from the Protestant community will be learning Irish.” Some controlled schools, which mainly serve the Protestant community, already offer Irish as part of the curriculum. She continued: “Obviously I would like our system harmonised across the island because I think there are benefits for us and we should remove all obstacles through mobility. “Leaving Certificate pupils in the Republic study six core subjects for two years but have the option to take up to eight, with six counting towards university entrance. “Junior Cert and GCSE are very similar, post Junior Cert and post GCSE we have big differences. When you start your Leaving Cert cycle this is where I think the Southern system is better than the system here in the North.” Although Ms Ruane’s reign as Education Minister has been controversial and provoked severe criticism at times, she has no regrets, makes no apologies and would relish the opportunity to continue in the post despite the major budgetary challenges facing education.
“I would love us (Sinn Fein) to choose Education again but that will be a discussion for our party and then among the various parties. I’d love to be (Education Minister) and I would love to continue the reforms in education,” she said. One of her greatest achievements, she said, has been bringing “about one of the most progressive and radical reforms of education since the Partition of Ireland”, which included axing the 11-plus. “The system I inherited when I came in here in May 2007 was a system designed for the 1940s. We have had to dismantle that system, it was passed its sell-by date, if ever it was the system that should have been in place, and that’s basically what we did brick by brick. We have created a new system of education. “The academic selection debate is over. The direction of travel is now moving towards a flexible, modern education system in terms of how our children transfer from primary to post primary, but even more importantly, how our children learn in post-primary.” And she warned those who were continuing to resist the reforms that their efforts were pointless. “Change has happened, it is happening and further change will happen,” she stated. “The Catholic sector in its entirety is moving away from selection. In the Irish medium sector there is no selection and in the integrated sector, by and large, selection is not operating.”
However, the Education Minister has conceded that grammar schools in the controlled sector continue to ignore her decision |to scrap academic selection by |offering what she calls breakaway tests (AQE and GL) to determine admission. She has also laid the blame for poor literacy and numeracy skills and the 9,588 teenagers in Northern Ireland who leave school every year without attaining five GCSEs at the door of grammar schools, who admit pupils based on academic selection. She claimed: “What they are going to do is contribute to the entrenchment of disadvantage and the number of young people who are leaving school without proper qualifications. They need to take responsibility. “It is not good enough for them to sit by and say ‘we are doing well in our school’ and watch while young people are failed by an outdated system.” Accepting no responsibility for the thousands of young people who are failed by the education system, Ms Ruane said: “I attribute it to the very unequal system we had in the past. Our curriculum was totally and utterly distorted by the 11-plus and one of the biggest successes of the last four years has been to bring in the revised curriculum and to support principals, teachers, unions who were opposed to the distortion of the curriculum.”
It is widely believed that Sinn Fein will not retain Education following the Assembly elections but Ms Ruane has no concerns about a new unionist minister overturning many of her decisions. She said: “It will be very difficult for them to do that. First of all Sinn Fein will not be supporting the reintroduction of the 11-plus, and you need cross-community support in the Assembly to bring in regulations.”
Belfast Telegraph – Lindsay Fergus
Why forcing Irish on all makes most of us gag
March 21, 2011
MOST people are fairly impressed with the way our new Taoiseach is getting off the mark on tackling various pre-election issues.
But at least one of his policy proposals has already been spectacularly abandoned. That’s the promise to remove the compulsion to take Irish as a Leaving Certificate subject.
In one way it’s easy to see why Mr Kenny dropped the idea like a hot potato: the squawks, yells, huffs and puffs were deafening… all delivered in English, of course, as is the wont of the language police when they’re saying something they want understood; no sense protesting in our sacred native tongue, since the majority of people would neither hear nor understand. Their yelling was so deafening that Fine Gael probably thought the issue could lose them the election. So they listened to the travellers on the Irish language gravy train rather than to the population at large: and dropped the policy.
An Coimisineir Teanga, Sean O Curreain, whose office was set up to implement the provisions of the Official Languages Act, issued his annual report last week. It contained records of 700-odd complaints from people who found themselves unable to conduct their business through Irish with State departments. The Coimisineir was particularly pained because according to the last Census of Population, he points out, there are 72,000 people in Ireland who use Irish “on a daily basis”. I find that a fascinating statistic. Because another statistic from the report shows that only 1.5 per cent of the administrative staff of the Department of Education could provide a service in Irish. When you put those two statistics together, it would seem that the department has been singularly unlucky in being unable to find employees with a working knowledge of the language. Or could it be that the 72,000 people who use it “daily” are a figment of somebody’s imagination? Maybe even their own? After all, as Mr O Curreain himself points out, young adults are leaving school after having completed 1,500 hours of language tuition over a 13-year period … and they still can’t speak or write Irish.
We have just completed our annual hypocrisy fest called Seachtain na Gaeilge, in which everyone is “encouraged” to use what Irish they have. But despite being out and about as much as the average Irish citizen, I didn’t hear a solitary word of Irish spoken. In fact I, who cannot speak, write, or understand Irish, spoke the most Irish I heard last week: twice, in the company of friends, I said “Slainte” as I raised a glass. I frequently say that, because I don’t like “Cheers”. If that makes me one of the 72,000 Irish people who use the first official language “on a daily basis” we’re even more delusional and hypocritical than I believed. Admittedly, listening to and watching RTE during Seachtain na Gaeilge, you’d think that the entire country was going around with its collective nose stuck in a copy of Buntus Cainte or whatever the current text book is. But then RTE follows the official line, so presumably it shares Coimisineir O Curreain’s delusion that there are 72,000 bi-lingual people in the country. (There may well be, but Irish isn’t one of their two languages.)
I remember a well-known broadcaster who doesn’t go in for hypocrisy telling me on one occasion that his then teenage children demanded that he enter them on the Census form as Irish speakers, because they thought “it was a nice thing to be”. He refused, not being one to tell lies on official forms, and he knew very well that they couldn’t construct a sentence between them. Maybe his honesty was less than universal, and that’s why the census listed 72,000 people who use Irish “daily”. The bullying response to the Fine Gael proposal to make an act of faith in the Irish people as having a genuine fondness for the language, was both sad and interesting. The Nationalist Thought Police howled with one voice that it would be a death knell. So this core of our national beating heart will die out unless it’s forced on people? Nobody will opt willingly to learn this beauteous tongue? But haven’t we been told for generations that a love of the language was one of the markers of what made us Irish? And didn’t thousands, nay, millions of us suffer dungeon, fire, and sword to speak it? Or was that the Rosary?
What was really happening when it looked as though Fine Gael might actually have the courage of its convictions, was a convulsion among the people who’ve been on the financial pig’s back for years thanks to the compulsory nature of Irish in the education system and the public service. I used to feel guilty about my cynical belief that the various Mna na Tithe in the summer Irish schools were probably down on their knees storming heaven for their teenage visitors to be found uttering a forbidden English word. Because the kids are sent home in disgrace… but their fees aren’t refunded. Nice little money-making scam, I thought. And I was right: the language police even came out and admitted it: the Bean a Ti would be out of business, they shouted; under the Fine Gael proposals nobody would study Irish if they didn’t have to, much less visit the Gaeltacht during summer holidays. I recall receiving a letter on another occasion when I wrote about linguistic hypocrisy, in that case the outrageous expense involved in having all EU documents translated into Irish as an “official language” of the Community. My letter came from a civil servant. Who did I think I was, he wanted to know? He knew people who had terrific jobs with terrific salaries: they were official translators of documentation into Irish. It was their full-time job.
Enda Kenny (with his immaculate Irish, and obvious love of the language) and Fine Gael generally, were clearly naive even to imagine that they could square up to the sacred cow of the Irish language. If they’d stuck to their guns they would certainly have lost the votes of those who are making a load of money out of the language. But the sad thing is that Mr Kenny didn’t have the wit to realise that these people may shout a storm, but they’re ridiculously few in number. Effectively, the breaking of the Fine Gael promise is chickening out on an opportunity to revive the language. Because it hasn’t occurred to any of them that the language isn’t the problem: it’s having it shoved joylessly and leadenly down people’s throats that makes it hated. And yes, let’s tell the truth: there are more people out there who loathe Irish than love or speak it. And it’s compulsion that did it.
Sunday Independent – Emer O’Kelly
A new plan for education
March 21, 2011
Madam, – It was most refreshing and encouraging to read Seán Flynn’s advice to the new Minister for Education (Education Today, March 15th) regarding “breathing new life into the Irish language”.
It is a rare experience to read the direct clarity of the message “overturning 90 years of failed Irish language policy”. Those of us who speak and love the Irish language and value it as a gateway to the land of our forefathers, are aware of the malign effect of this policy on generations of young people. We have had nearly a century of State compulsion, even, for a time, to the extent of “no Irish, no job” in the public service. We have had bribery in the form of grants to Irish-speaking homes, and jobs as translators for Irish language university students, in the pretence that it is necessary to use tons of paper for translations of legislation, to be read by a person or persons unknown. However, “an rud is annamh is iontach”, so full marks to Mr Flynn. The question is, will Ruairí Quinn, or any other Minister, stand up to the Irish language lobby and its phalanx of support organisations? The Taoiseach seems already to have backed down on compulsory Irish in the Leaving Cert. – Yours, etc,
PD GOGGIN,
Glenageary Woods,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Irish Independent – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
Gaelscoil Ros Eo – Lá Spraoi
March 16, 2011
