FG plan for Leaving Cert Irish a disgrace
February 24, 2011
I WAS appalled to learn about Fine Gael’s plan to possibly abolish compulsory Irish from the Leaving Certificate curriculum.
I will be sitting my Leaving Certificate examinations next year and believe that Irish is one of the most important subjects I am studying. As a small nation in the European melting pot of nations, the Irish language allows us to retain a unique identity. Enda Kenny, in his desperate bid for Taoiseach (after many years of trying and failing) is obviously now quite happy to take any measures necessary to gain the position he has sought after for so long.
For this misguided party, it’s not about the way you play the game but the end result. Their complete disregard for all the good work and endeavour that has gone into redeeming our national language, from the position it was in after 800 years of British rule, to the position it currently has, is absolutely astounding. It is a disgrace that after all the effort gone into promoting the language and keeping it alive that Mr Kenny is willing to throw it all away.
The abolition of compulsory Irish at Leaving Certificate level will most certainly result in an extreme decrease in the knowledge of the subject and the language as a whole. Perhaps Mr Kenny should seek the opinions of the students themselves before making such a drastic decision.
Eimear Walsh
Schull
Co Cork
Irish Examiner – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
15,000 petition against FG plan to end compulsory Irish
February 15, 2011
SOME 15,000 people have signed a petition opposing Fine Gael’s pledge to end compulsory Irish at Leaving Certificate if handed power.
The Union of Students in Ireland, which organised an estimated 250-strong march on the party’s headquarters, warned of a backlash by angry voters in the election. Aodhan O’Dea, USI Irish language officer, claimed the plan would kill the language. “I think it will definitely cost the party votes,” he said. “We’re seeing in all areas, Gaeltacht areas, where people are very angry with this. We’re seeing young people who are angry about this. “The petition we have today is 15,000 signatures, that’s a lot of people who are against this policy and a lot of people who will not vote for Fine Gael if they continue with this policy,” Mr O’Dea said.
Students from universities across the country and a small number of secondary schools marched the short distance from the Dáil to nearby Fine Gael headquarters, where they handed in the petition. Gardaí put the number of protesters at 250. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, a fluent Irish speaker, last week said the language as a compulsory class subject had failed.
Irish Examiner – Colm Kelpie
Silent protest over FG Irish language policy
February 14, 2011
STUDENTS will gather outside the Dáil today for a “silent protest” against Fine Gael’s policy on the Irish language.
Party leader Enda Kenny last week reiterated his vow to abolish Irish as a compulsory subject at Leaving Certificate level if returned to power. Mr Kenny, himself a fluent Irish speaker, told Raidió na Gaeltachta that Irish as a compulsory subject had clearly failed. Instead, Fine Gael believes that if it is made optional at Leaving Cert, students fond of the language would be drawn towards it, thus helping Irish survive. But an online petition organised by Irish teachers calling for Fine Gael to reconsider its stance has so far attracted 15,000 signatures.
And the Union of Students of Ireland is today organising the “silent protest” outside the Dáil to make clear its opposition to the Fine Gael proposal. The organisers of the protest argue that making Irish optional “will cause irreparable damage to the future of our native tongue”. They claim that if it is optional, students will not choose Irish as a subject because languages are harder subjects to study in the Leaving Cert and it would no longer be available in every school. Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin reiterated his own opposition to the Fine Gael proposal yesterday. “I disagree with it and I’ve made that clear that I support the retention of Irish as a compulsory Leaving Certificate subject, because to remove it now I think would spell the death knell to the language,” Mr Martin said.
“I feel there’s been a tremendous renaissance in recent times, particularly in the cities, with young people in gaelscoileanna, who have transformed the attitude towards the Irish language across the country and outside the Gaeltachtaí. “I think the policy would have very negative impacts on the Gaeltachtaí and the economies of those areas in terms of summer colleges and the income that goes into those areas. “So many of those summer colleges that we’re all familiar with serve more than just a function in relation to language; I think they open up people to another world that’s important in terms of our cultural heritage.” Last week, Mr Kenny said his party’s manifesto would propose a period of consultation and review of the current curriculum before ultimately making Irish an optional subject for students after the Junior Certificate examination.
Irish Examiner – Paul O’Brien & Niall Murray
FG Leaving Cert plan will hurt Irish
February 14, 2011
ENDA KENNY has again insisted that Irish should be removed as a compulsory subject from the Leaving Certificate.
Does he also propose to take this route with Maths? Irish students have been shown to struggle with Maths yet the consensus is that the curriculum should be reformed, not that the subject be made optional.
With 40% of marks in the Leaving Cert going on the oral Irish exam next year, I would like to see this reform given a chance. The Ukrainian writer Pavlychko warned in 1989 that “where a language disappears there you have the disappearance also of the national structure and the national spirit. In trying to save the Ukrainian language we are saying that we are trying to save a nation’s memory and a nation’s future”.
I hope Enda Kenny has given the most serious consideration to this election promise as the impact on our language may lead to its demise.
Róisín Lawless
Áth Buí
Co na Mí
Irish Examiner – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
Don’t force Irish on us
February 14, 2011
Forcing everyone to learn a language for the purposes of cultural enlightenment is a rather blunt tactic that breeds indifference.
Encouraging pupils to voluntarily pick it up, instead of an obligation, is a far more honest policy than insisting every government publication and road sign is as Gaeilge. Whoever wants to learn it, should be encouraged and rewarded. However, those who have no interest should not be flogged with it.
Mark Lonergan
Dublin 11
Irish Examiner – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
Martin: Fine Gael policy would lead to extinction of Irish language
February 8, 2011
Fine Gael’s plan to abolish the teaching of the Irish language as a core subject for the Leaving Certificate would lead to the extinction of the language, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin claimed today.
“Irish belongs to us all and the Irish people have never had a more favourable attitude to the revival of the language,” he said. “We need to continue to reform the way Irish is taught and promoted but downgrading the status of the language in our education system would lead to the extinction of our language. “Enda Kenny should look at the evidence as to what has happened elsewhere when the study of languages was made optional. He should listen to the experts in this area and to those members of his own party who obviously recognise how misguided this approach is.
“Our Twenty Year Strategy for Irish is the most radical and comprehensive plan for the promotion of the language since the foundation of the State. “The strategy is a road map for the development of the language over the next twenty years and sets out a range of new measures – including many concerning how Irish is taught – to increase the number of daily speakers of Irish to 250,000 by 2030. “Fine Gael have given their support to this strategy but that support is now irrelevant given Enda Kenny’s pledge on RTÉ Raidio na Gaeltachta this morning to abolish the teaching of Irish as a core subject for the Leaving Cert. “Making Irish optional is not an option as far as I am concerned. It would lead not the revival of Irish by 2030 but to its extinction.”
Irish Examiner
Loss of 50 teachers ‘a threat to viability’ of Gaelscoils
December 13, 2010
The loss of teachers in dozens of Gaelscoils will create larger classes and make all-Irish primary schools less viable, it has been claimed.
The national recovery plan revealed last month that favourable staffing levels for Gaelscoils, particularly smaller ones, would be ended. But details outlined after Tuesday’s budget show that the number of additional teaching posts to be lost is 50, significantly more than had been expected. Many of the schools will lose two teachers and Gaelscoileanna, which represents all-Irish schools outside the Gaeltacht, said it will put Irish language schools under serious threat. The extra teaching posts apply to Gaelscoils with between 76 and 257 pupils, meaning, for example, that a Gaelscoil needs 153 children to appoint a sixth teacher but an ordinary primary school needs 173. Almost 150 primary schools outside the Gaeltacht teach entirely through Irish, and the number of pupils attending them has grown by over 10,000 to more than 31,000 in a decade.
“These favourable arrangements were to help develop our schools which usually start out very small and are usually in unsuitable accommodation for the first five to 10 years,” said Gaelscoileanna president, Micheál Ó Broin. He is principal of Gaelscoil Chnoc na Ré in Sligo town, one of dozens which will lose staff next year as a result of the move by Tánaiste and Education Minister Mary Coughlan. The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said the smaller classes took account of the fact that Irish is not the language spoken at home for most Gaelscoil pupils. “Many of the teachers who lose their jobs will be in limbo because, although the Croke Park agreement rules out compulsory redundancies, many all-Irish schools are not covered by redeployment arrangements. A number of principals will also have to go back as full-time teachers because of the posts being cut,” an INTO spokesperson said. “Government politicians have never wasted a chance to stress their complete support for Irish-language education and recognised the fundamental role played by Irish-medium schools in developing and promoting the language. Those who vote for this cutback will effectively now say the opposite.”
The cut to Gaelscoil staffing is among a range of measures that will see 1,230 teaching posts withdrawn from schools next autumn. Other affected services include schemes to improve education for Travellers, students at risk of dropping out, children whose first language is not English and rural schools in disadvantaged areas.
Irish Examiner – Niall Murray
10 Nollaig 2010
Irish-speaking children don’t get a fair deal
September 7, 2010
Hurrah for Education Minister Mary Coughlan who is ploughing ahead with 40% of the marks for Irish in the Leaving Cert being awarded for the oral examination.
I have no doubt teachers and students alike will rise to the challenge and that, as a result, Irish will become a popular subject. Could the minister not spare a thought, however, for the fluent speaker who will sit bored through Irish class? Is Irish doomed to become the only official EU language where its native speakers are not meaningfully exposed to its literature and challenged at second level?
It was proposed to offer an optional subject of Irish Literature/Translation Studies to challenge and round off the second-level education of fluent and native speakers, but this was rejected as giving a minority an extra subject.
We all rejoice in families who practise music at home and never grumble if their children take music as an extra Leaving Cert subject.
Neither do we grumble when students with Russian or French at home pick up extra honours in these subjects.
Is the anti-Irish bias really so strong in the Department of Education as to deny this educational need of Irish-speaking children?
Daithí Mac Cárthaigh
Gaeltacht Rath Chairn
Baile Átha Buí
Co na Mí
The Irish Examiner – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
07 Meán Fómhair 2010
Numbers taking Junior Cert oral Irish test double
August 31, 2010
The number of students who did oral Irish tests for this year’s Junior Certificate has more than doubled since last year and quadrupled since 2006, despite a union ban on teachers marking their own students.
Marks for the optional Junior Certificate oral doubled to 40% of the total for those who took it in June, but numbers were expected to be small.
Unlike the Leaving Certificate, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) does not send out teachers from other schools to assess students’ language skills.
Instead, a school-based assessment must be carried out and the marks are then notified to the SEC, but the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) forbade their members from co-operation.
In previous years, only around 300 students at a dozen schools presented marks to the SEC from the oral exam, but figures obtained by the Irish Examiner suggest the new marking scheme has incentivised more schools to do the non-compulsory oral Irish test. The numbers rose to 22 schools in 2008 (the year after the increased marks were announced) and to 24 last year, when 725 students did the test.
But, with 40% of the Junior Certificate Irish marks available for it this year, provisional SEC figures show almost 1,700 students getting their results next month took an oral Irish exam. The 54 schools concerned are across the different sectors in which members of both second level teacher unions work, although it is unclear if the tests were done by the students’ own teachers or by others brought in from outside.
“We are aware that management at a small number of schools were making arrangements for some form of external assessment in Junior Certificate Irish. We remain opposed to teachers assessing their own students because of possible complications to their classroom relations and undermining of the exam system’s transparency and objectivity,” an ASTI spokesperson said.
While around one-third of this year’s Junior Certificate students will sit the first exam with increased marks for oral Irish in the 2012 Leaving Certificate, most will go into transition year.
The Irish Examiner revealed yesterday that a review of the controversial increase of marks in Leaving Certificate Irish for the compulsory oral test from 2012 has been ordered by Education Minister Mary Coughlan, even though schools are beginning to teach students the revised syllabus this week. Groups representing all-Irish schools which oppose the changes said that, rather than a review, proper research and a pilot programme in some schools should take place to assess the likely impacts.
Irish Examiner – Niall Murray
31 Lúnasa 2010
All-Irish body ready to control schools
August 12, 2010
A body that is patron to more than 60 all-Irish schools has offered its services in areas where the Catholic Church may decide to hand over control of some of its schools.
The move by An Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna LánGhaeilge follows the release last week of a Department of Education report outlining more than 40 towns where primary schools are predominantly Catholic or other denominations but where there is unlikely to be sufficient population growth in the next six years to warrant new schools being opened.
The Catholic bishops had sought the information and have promised to consult with local communities, schools, parents and staff before deciding if they will divest patronage of schools in areas where there may be demand for a greater choice of school ethos.
While observers have highlighted the possibility of multi-denominational patron body Educate Together, which controls more than 50 primary schools, or city and county Vocational Education Committees (VECs), filling the gap, An Foras Pátrúnachta has stressed it is also available.
The organisation is patron to 58 primary and three second level schools, including a mix of Catholic, inter-denominational (for children of Catholic and Protestant faiths) and multi-denominational schools (where pupils of all faiths and none are taught but no specific religion is taught in classes).
General secretary Caoimhín O hEaghra said that the process of consultation before bishops take any decisions may take time. But, he said, if all parties are serious about the proposal, then gaelscoils are an obvious place to start.
“There is greater demand than ever for gaelscoileanna throughout the country in both rural and urban areas.
“This demand is seen in areas of stable population and in areas where the population is growing,” he said.
“If a gaelscoil currently under the Catholic Church wishes to change to the patronage of An Foras Pátrúnachta they will hold onto their Catholic ethos, plus being with An Foras Pátrúnachta whose main focus is Irish-medium education is immediately of benefit to the school and the change of patronage would be seamless,” Mr O hEaghra said.
More than 92% of the country’s 3,165 primary schools have a Catholic ethos, 69 are multi-denominational and eight are inter-denominational.
Irish Examiner – Niall Murray
09 Lúnasa 2010
