So many quangos, so little Irish
March 19, 2013
Millions of euro flow into a range of Irish-language educational quangos. But with few people having little more than cúpla focail, it’s time to question the strategy
In July 2007, the Harris Report indicated that less than one third of pupils from English-medium schools achieved mastery of the Irish language between 1985 and 2002. The report also found the confidence of teachers to speak Irish declined significantly, with almost a quarter indicating their own standard of Irish was “weak”.
In our schools, there are serious questions about how effective Irish-language policies have been, with many school leavers still unable to speak more than a cúpla focal within a few years of the Leaving Cert. Last week, it emerged some gardaí are unable to ask basic questions in Irish, despite having studied it in school and at the Garda College in Templemore.
Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Have the myriad Irish language quangos achieved anything? And what is the future of the language, a slow death or a miraculous revival?
In 2010, the Fianna Fáil-led government published the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language. The document was rich in promises and expensive aspiration. Three years later, Foras na Gaeilge, the all-island body for the promotion and development of the Irish language, which also channels public funding to 19 Irish-language organisations, considers publication of the strategy a major result in itself.
Progress on the strategy has been slow. Several key parts have been axed. A planned Irish-language education resource centre in Baile Bhúirne, Co Cork, will not now happen. An Comhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta (COGG), which provides Irish-language resources to schools, has been downgraded: the opposite of what was promised in the strategy. Promised financial support for trainee teachers to attend the Gaeltacht has not materialised and a scholarship scheme for disadvantaged students to attend the Gaeltacht has also evaporated.
However, many other educational parts of the strategy are being implemented, in part at least, including the development of third-level programmes at NUI Galway and Dublin City University.
There is significant duplication of resources between many publicly-funded Irish language organisations. Cumann na bhFiann, Ógras, and Údarás na Gaeltachta all organise Irish-language youth clubs. Gaelchultúr, Conradh na Gaeilge and Gael Linn all arrange Irish classes for adults outside the Gaeltacht, while six other organisations operate Gaeltacht-based Irish-language courses. Conradh na Gaeilge and Gaelscoileanna Teo both play a role in establishing Irish-medium schools.
COGG, Gael Linn, and Foras na Gaeilge all produce educational materials for Irish medium schools on the island of Ireland, although COGG produces the vast majority. In Northern Ireland, An tAoisanaid, which receives the majority of its funding from the State through Foras na Gaeilge, provides these resources for its Irish-language school curricula. A further unit within Foras, Clar na Leabhar Gaeilge, publishes occasional Irish-language books for a general readership.
Duplication of resources
The Irish language sector also has significant and powerful representation, with Conradh na Gaeilge, Comhluadar, Comhar na Múinteoirí Gaeilge, and Gaelscoileanna Teo, all of which are publicly funded, among the organisations with have a lobbying and advocacy role.
In the face of opposition from many of the public bodies funded through Foras, amalgamations of these quangos have been slow. While much public money has been invested in Irish-language educational initiatives at all levels, in contrast, modern European languages were completely axed from the primary-school curriculum in 2011.
Major technology companies such as eBay, Facebook, and Google are hiring staff from France, Spain, Germany, and Italy due to the lack of qualified European-language graduates from within Ireland. There is no corresponding level of public investment in European languages that comes remotely close to that spent on Irish. There have always been serious questions about the effectiveness of Irish-language policies in education.
The 1966 Fianna Fáil government, led by Seán Lemass, made a series of pledges to support the language and increase bilingualism. A three-year action plan for the Irish language was published in 1983 during a Fine Gael/Labour government. Then, as with the latest strategy, teaching of other aspects of the curriculum through Irish was called for, and recognised it as crucial for young people to truly engage with the language. It never happened.
A major focus of the current strategy is on increasing the number of Irish speakers nationwide, and supporting the many organisations that provide Irish-language classes, competitions, courses and events. But meaningful or effective change in how Irish is taught in schools has been slow since the foundation of the State. Will the latest attempts to reform the Irish language sector also amount to nothing?
Changing how Irish is taught
Thirty years on from the 1983 action plan, and once again, the provision of Irish-language immersion education, or partial immersion education, forms a central plank – arguably the central plank – of the latest Irish-language education strategy.
The idea of immersion education is that pupils are given a chance to use Irish not just in Irish class but also that, for instance, some other classes such as geography, maths, religion and history would be taught through Irish. The strategy says that “from as early as possible in Implementation Phase II, it is proposed to move towards a situation where partial Irish-language immersion will be offered to all children”.
To prove the point that immersion works, the level of pupils in Gaelscoileanna who achieve mastery in both listening and spoken Irish is above 90 per cent. The strategy is in the first phase of implementation and there are still 17 years to bring about change. But three years on, no significant developments have taken place to introduce widespread immersion or partial immersion education.
Indications from the Department of Education and from senior figures in Irish-language organisations suggest that, despite its centrality to the strategy, the issue is not on the table for the time being. The focus is firmly on revising the curriculum for all primary pupils and supporting immersion education in Irish-medium schools, although the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is developing a new Irish-language primary curriculum and looking closely at the changes that have already been made to the Leaving Cert, particularly the oral exam.
View from the Irish language sector
The Irish-language lobby is suspicious of the Government, after Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s pre-election suggestion that compulsory Irish in schools be abolished. More recently, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn stated that too much time in schools is spent on Irish and religion.
“There is no evidence of any commitment to the 20-year strategy in the current Government,” says one senior figure in a major Irish-language organisation. “Little by little the language is being downgraded.” The current Programme for Government commits the Government to supporting the strategy and delivering on achievable goals.
The most significant piece of legislation relating to the Irish language is the controversial 2011 Gaeltacht Act, which redefined Gaeltacht areas based on the amount of locals speaking the language rather than on geographic location.
“The Irish-language community are being frozen out of the decision-making processes,” says Julian de Spáinn, general secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge. “The publication of the Strategy was a big achievement and included a range of recommendations from the community. Three years later, and the Department is picking and choosing the easiest elements of the Strategy, implementing only parts that are cost neutral, and ignoring whole swathes of it altogether. A huge amount of mistakes are being made. A high-level structure between the community and the authorities must be set up to oversee the implementation of the strategy, or it will not succeed.”
There are some positive indications. An 11 per cent increase in the uptake of higher level Irish at Leaving Cert level has been linked to the new marking scheme that awards 40 per cent to the oral exam. Overall, the number taking higher-level Irish increased last year by almost 5 per cent to 37 per cent.
De Spáinn says that the teaching of languages needs to be changed entirely. He argues, supported by international evidence, that partial immersion education is central. However, the Department of Education is a long way from implementing this change. Apart from some minor curriculum adjustments, the strategy barely addresses how the teaching of Irish will change. It seems like another major oversight in our approach to the national language.
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Inspirational stalwart of the Irish-language movement in Belfast
March 11, 2013
Méabh Uí Chriagáin (Maeve Cregan) was a stalwart of the Irish language movement in Belfast, and a bridge between its early years and the current upsurge in interest.
She helped keep Irish alive through long years when the political atmosphere was hostile. The younger generation in the language movement found her inspirational and encouraging. They felt she had her finger on the pulse of what was happening in Irish-language circles. Uí Chriagáin first became involved in Irish-language activities in the 1940s. Some she worked with then had been involved in the revival of the early 20th century. Over the years, she served on the executive of Comhaltas Uladh (as the Gaelic League was known in the North), and was active in Irish-language drama. Her work helped give birth to Cumann Cultúrtha Mhic Reachtain in north Belfast and to Irish-language primary and nursery schools. All her activities were carried out while a mother of six, working as a primary school teacher.
Irish was important in her life. She met her late husband, Ruairí, while both were learning Irish in the Donegal Gaeltacht. They raised their family through Irish. Uí Chriagáin was also one of the founders of Newington Youth Club, in north Belfast. She had great compassion, often accommodating young people suffering family problems, and was active in the St Vincent de Paul Society. Her interests were wide. She was a talented painter and spoke Spanish, French and Italian and enjoyed visiting Europe. Her final visit to Italy was in May of last year. Uí Chriagáin was born in May 1932, near Ardglass in Co Down, the only child to Michael Quinn, a school attendance officer, and his wife Annie (née Gracey), a seamstress. Her father was from Belfast, her mother a native of the Ardglass area. The family moved to Belfast, living for some years in a house where Lieut Gen Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the scout movement, had lived when a British army officer in Belfast.
Her secondary schooling was at St Dominic’s High School. Briefly, she undertook a Celtic Studies degree at Queen’s University. She left, to qualify as a teacher at St Mary’s Training College. As well as teaching at various primary schools in Belfast, she worked in the Pigs Marketing Board. In her late 60s, Uí Chriagái returned to university and completed her degree in Celtic studies. Years earlier, she had taught one of her lecturers at primary school. She was predeceased by her husband, Ruairí, and is survived by daughters Anne, Carrie, Ita, Tina and Una, son Ciarán and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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Let’s not lose our native tongue in outer space
February 21, 2013
OPINION: A celestial tweet as Gaeilge was loved. We should treat Irish far better on Earth
On Monday night, Chris Hadfield became the nation’s favourite Canadian astronaut when he tweeted a picture of Ireland from space accompanied by a message in Irish – “Tá Éire fíorálainn!” In charming us with a few judiciously chosen words of our native tongue, the commander was following the recent example of two more illustrious foreigners. In May 2011, the Queen of England left our then president Mary McAleese open-mouthed in disbelief with a majestically delivered “Go raibh maith agat” and, just a few days later, Barack Obama had a crowded College Green in raptures with that riff on his can-do battle cry for the ages, “Is féidir linn”.
On both occasions, the decision to respectfully acknowledge the existence of the Irish language was greeted with widespread approval. It appears that the sound of a stranger speaking Irish gives us a fuzzy feeling of self-worth, a feeling not to be had from, say, speaking Irish ourselves. Hadfield’s tweet from the great beyond brought a similar jolt of affirmation, and the Irish language became – for one night on Twitter at least – a little reminder that, as the poet Michael Hartnett once wrote, “We are human, and therefore not a herd.” On Monday, the tweet machine was positively glowing with gratitude, much of it for the commander’s use of a few words in Irish. “Wow, I can feel the warmth of the Irish all the way up here…” Hadfield later tweeted, adding a “go raibh maith agaibh!” that ensured there was more Irish used in the International Space Station this week than most Irish people would use in a year.
Lip service
It is easy to be cynical about these fleeting public expressions of warmth towards Irish, a language that has all but had the life sucked out of it by years of lip service.
Still, there was something genuine about the affection for the language evident in the response to Hadfield. Maybe this was because the commander’s tweet, for all its otherworldliness, was more authentic than either Obama’s or the banríon’s cúpla focal. While Obama’s mantra has entered the mainstream like no other phrase in Irish since “an bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?”, there was a hint of the rock star’s “Good evening, wherever we are! We love you!” about his “Is féidir linn.” For her part, Queen Elizabeth’s “go raibh maith agat” was burdened with such historical significance that McAleese’s silent “Wow!” felt like an overreaction almost immediately.
Oldest living vernacular
In the end, the charming Canadian commander outdid them both. Here was a language that clings stubbornly, if a little forlornly, to its status as the oldest living vernacular in Europe, fully alive again for a brief moment in the cosmos. And with those three words – “Tá Éire fíorálainn!” – Hadfield brought a little light from afar to our evening.
Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away called the Gaeltacht, Irish is dying as the language of the home and community. It is dying because that is what usually happens to languages like Irish, but it is also dying because of official neglect and a failure to take the measures needed to save it. The most recent study in this area suggested that unless radical action was taken, Irish had only 15 to 20 years left as the primary community language in even the strongest Gaeltacht areas.
That was in 2007.
In response, three years later, in 2010, the last government published a 20-year strategy for the language. Three years on and the present Government has been slow in implementing that strategy. Instead, it has diluted what was already an overly aspirational plan by making several decisions that undermine it. For example, it has withdrawn the support given to trainee teachers to study in the Gaeltacht, whereas the strategy is committed to allowing students to spend a greater length of time in Irish-speaking communities. It is difficult to ascertain how many people really care about the preservation of Irish as no government has been willing to take a political gamble that the type of affection provoked by Hadfield’s tweet might be sincere. This is despite the existence of plenty of earthly evidence that proves a considerable majority of us have a favourable attitude to Irish. Would the public support a radical, well-resourced plan to save the Irish language? Would such a plan work? We might never know. Because it seems that, to adapt the tagline from the movie Alien, in the Gaeltacht, nobody can hear you scream.
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Ceisteanna bunúsacha le freagairt faoin ‘táirge den scoth’
February 13, 2013
Gradam idirnáisiúnta aistriúcháin buaite ag bean Bhaile Átha Cliath
January 30, 2013
‘Beart de réir briathair
January 30, 2013
Survey on school patronage
January 28, 2013
Sir, – I am happy to clarify that Alan Whelan’s preferences (January 24th) will be taken into account – along with the views of every other parent of 0-12-year-old children in each town covered by the primary school patronage survey who fills in the survey at www.education.ie.
It is open to either or both parents or guardians using their PPS numbers to complete the survey and to express their preferences regarding choice of school patron.
All preferences expressed by either parent or guardian will be counted and validated. However, t he number and age of children associated with each preference will be validated against the PPS number of the parent or guardian in receipt of child benefit.
I hope more parents will follow Mr Whelan’s lead and take the time to express their preferences on who they wish to see running their primary schools before the closing date of February 8th.
– Yours, etc,
DEIRDRE GRANT,
Director of Communications, Department of Education, Marlborough Street, Dublin 1.
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Education suffering ‘death by initiative’
January 28, 2013
The quality of primary education is being undermined by reform initiatives from the Department of Education, a school leader has claimed.
Seán Cottrell, director of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN), said the system was suffering from “death by initiative”. Over the years, he told delegates to the IPPN conference in Dublin, principals had been bombarded by initiatives.
“It is obvious from their nature that they are ad hoc and reactionary because there is a lack of an overall vision for Irish education.” He said there was a gross imbalance between management capacity in schools and the expectations of the Department of Education.
“To resolve this imbalance, the department must prioritise funding for skilled administrators, provide a minimum of one non-contact day per week for the leadership and management role of teaching principals and reinstate in-school management posts,” he said.
Key strategies He said Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn should adopt three key strategies if he “genuinely wants to make primary education a priority for this Government”: First, no more new initiatives unless schools are provided with the necessary capacity to manage their implementation. “We have superb teachers – allow them teach.”
Second, give principals administrative back-up so they can fulfil their function of leading the quality of learning. Finally, trust principals: give them the resources to run schools and harness their capacity to lead.
Mr Quinn was unable to attend the conference for personal reasons. His address was read by Seán Ó Foghlú, secretary general of the Department of Education.
Mr Ó Foghlú said the latest international rankings indicated Ireland was performing better than most countries, especially in literacy, but there was still “some work to do if we want to join the ranks of the best performing countries in the world. That must be our ambition”.
On school patronage, he said existing patrons, and most notably the Catholic Church, would have six months to respond to the results of parental surveys on their preferred school options, currently under way.
In his address, Mr Cottrell said it was fine to compare standards in different countries. “But let’s also compare t he support schools have …Minister, can you imagine the impact on your department if you lost half of your assistant secretaries, half of your principal officers and half of your advisers?”
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Quinn criticised over patronage
January 22, 2013
A leading Catholic educationalist has accused Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn of exaggerating the level of parental demand for a wider diversity of school patrons.
Prof Eamonn Conway, head of the department of theology and religious studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, said the recent surveys in five pilot areas proved to be a “surprising endorsement of denominational education”.
He said: “If the pilot survey is indicative, then the demand is not as great as the Minister anticipated.’’ While the Government put a brave face on the survey results, the reality was that a large number of the parents who responded indicated they wished to have their children educated in Catholic schools.
“The actual number of parents who expressed an opinion in favour of change in each of the five areas polled in the pilot survey amounted to between 5 and 8 per cent, evidence of parental demand, certainly, but hardly of a “strong” or “clear” demand or “clear need” for greater choice, as the findings were reported in the press. “Moreover, a large majority of parents did not participate in the survey at all.”
The turnout ranged from 22 per cent to 44 per cent in the pilot survey in five areas last year. Parents in a further 38 areas are now being surveyed on their preferred choice of school patron. They have until February 8th to participate in the survey.
Prof Conway said t he church welcomed greater provision of alternative school patronage and “hopes that this will enable the schools that remain Catholic to get on with being so, without any expectation that their ethos will be diminished or diluted by the need to accommodate those of other faiths or none’’.
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School patron survey opens to parents
January 14, 2013
Voters in 38 areas given ‘historic opportunity’ to change patronage
Parents in 38 areas can vote from today for their preferred choice of primary school patron. The survey is designed to establish the level of demand from parents for diversity of school patronage in each of the towns and suburbs. At present, more than 90 per cent or 3,000 schools are under the remit of the Catholic Church. Parents of all children aged 12 and under can participate in the survey; this can be accessed online via education.ie until February 8th.
The survey initiative is in line with the recommendations of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary sector. Last year, there was controversy about the outcome of surveys in the five towns chosen for the initial stage of the process: Arklow, Castlebar, Tramore, Trim and Whitehall in Dublin.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn claimed the results in the pilot areas showed a strong demand for change. However, Fr Michael Drumm of the Catholic Schools Partnership said only a small percentage of parents in some areas favour changes to school patronage. He claimed that only 25 per cent of relevant parents surveyed responded.
Fr Drumm said he could not understand why the Department of Education cannot publish the exact statistic on the percentage of parents who participated. “I think people should look at the real figures. Take Arklow – those who want change are parents of 80 children in a school population of 1,965. That is only 4 per cent .”
If the latest survey backs change, the department will ask existing patrons to come up with a plan to transfer some schools to other patron bodies. The department hopes to begin the process of handing over Catholic-run schools to other patron bodies by September 2014. ‘ Real say’ Mr Quinn said the survey represents a “historic opportunity for parents to have a real say in the type of school they wish to send their children to, be it denominational, multi-denominational, all-Irish or other”.
There are 311 primary schools in the 38 areas which will be surveyed. The bodies which have indicated that they would like to become patrons of any divested schools in the identified areas are the VECs, An Foras Patrúnachta, Educate Together and, in a small number of areas, the National Learning Network and the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
A comprehensive information campaign by the department in each of the areas begins today. Helpline: 1800 303621
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