Protest over FG language strategy
February 15, 2011
Several hundred students marched on Fine Gael headquarters at lunchtime today in protest at Enda Kenny’s proposal to make the Irish language optional for the Leaving Certificate.
Demonstrators staged a silent sit-down protest at Dáil Éireann before making their way to the party’s headquarters on Upper Mount Street. The Fine Gael language strategy, announced earlier this month, will make Irish optional after the Junior Certificate following a period of consultation with stakeholders. A petition signed by more than 15,000 people opposed to the measure was handed in by Aodhán Ó Déa, Irish language officer with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI). Mr Ó Déa said “We are angry about this and we won’t vote for Fine Gael if they continue with this policy.”
“Enda Kenny is not happy to meet with us and we’re telling him that if you’re not happy to meet us Enda, we’re going to come and meet you and that is why we are handing in this petition to Fine Gael headquarters today”, Mr Ó Déa said. Today’s demonstration is the first stage of a new campaign against the new Fine Gael strategy. Many demonstrators covered their mouths with tape in a symbolic protest against the proposal. One protester said Mr Kenny’s move was a “lazy solution to a problem that has been brewing for years.” Acknowledging problems with the current curriculum, TCD student Jen Ní Mhathúna said by getting rid of compulsory Irish, Fine Gael was avoiding the issue. “It’s a lot easier in the short term to just do away with it and not have to deal with what the difficulties in teaching Irish are.”
“In the long term it is absolutely detrimental to the language and the future of the language”, she said. Another TCD student, Mr Cillian Hanaphy said the move was an attempt to reduce the language’s social status. “There’s no evidence anywhere in the world that says you can restore a language by reducing its social status. It’s an absolute cop-out”, he insisted. “The language will die out eventually if this happens because students won’t pick it. The curriculum needs to be changed – you can’t just get rid of a language”, he added. The Fine Gael leader’s proposal has been criticised by language and Gaeltacht community groups. A number of Fine Gael election candidates have also expressed their disquiet at the plan.
Describing the measure as “a regressive step in the development of the language”, Cllr. Brendan Griffin is the latest Fine Gael election candidate to state his concern. Mr Kenny’s proposal has caused “great worry, upset and annoyance” to many of his constituents and would have “negative cultural and economic implications on a local and national level”, the Kerry South candidate candidate said.
The Irish Times – Éanna Ó Caollaí
Future of Irish to be made key issue for election
February 14, 2011
DEBATE: With just days to go before the first election television debate in Irish, on Wednesday, between the three party leaders, language organisations have stepped up their campaign to defend Irish as a core subject for the Leaving Certificate.
Conradh na Gaeilge says it is canvassing all candidates in the election on this issue, and on full implementation of the new 20-year strategy for the Irish language. Some 300 people from Irish colleges in Gaeltacht regions attended a meeting on the issue last week in Furbo, Co Galway. Last week, two Fine Gael candidates in Galway West distanced themselves from their party leader’s proposal to drop Irish as a compulsory Leaving Certificate subject. Galway county councillor Sean Kyne and Senator Fidelma Healy Eames have acknowledged there should be a review before any such decision.
The Labour Party has denied a claim by Minister for Social Protection Eamon Ó Cuív last week that it supported Fine Gael’s proposal. Labour leader Eamon Gilmore says his party is committed to the retention of Irish as one of the three core compulsory subjects for the Leaving Certificate. He believes the teaching of Irish “needed significant reform”. “An objective of language policy should be to ensure that students leaving school should be able to conduct a conversation in Irish with their peers. “This is not always the case at present,” he said. He will take part with Fianna Fáíl leader Micheál Martin and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny in TG4’s three-way debate on Wednesday – the first such televised debate outside Dublin. The 50-minute debate may be prerecorded, to allow for English subtitles, and will be broadcast from TG4’s Baile na hAbhann headquarters, Co Galway, after the 7pm news.
The Irish Times – Lorna Siggins
Making Irish an option
February 11, 2011
Madam, – Gabriel Rosenstock (February 10th) is confident that we can find creative solutions to the problem of encouraging young people to engage with the Irish language.
Strange, then, that his default position is to force it upon them. – Yours, etc,
DARRAGH MCHUGH,
Moneen, Castlebar, Co Mayo.
Madam, – It may be Valentine’s Day next Monday but the leader of Fine Gael will not be winning the hearts of those who support the Irish language. While loved-up couples across Ireland will be exchanging chocolates and teddy bears, the Union of Students of Ireland will be holding a silent protest outside an empty Dáil against a political party which is deaf to their concerns. As a member of that party, I hang my head in shame. In his new book, Dr John Walsh critically examines the social and economic development of Irish in recent times. Recently he stated that making Irish an optional subject for the Leaving Certificate would have dire consequences for the language. As a renowned scholar of socio-linguistics surely his word carries more weight than a party-political policy that came to life without any substantial research worth mentioning.
As an active member of Young Fine Gael I too will be outside the Dáil next Monday. The question of the Irish language is bigger than party politics and so long as Fine Gael remains determined to make Irish an optional Leaving Certificate subject then I will have no choice but to remain ashamed of our policy on the Irish language. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL CLANCY,
Deputy-International Secretary,
Young Fine Gael,
Ennafort Road,
Raheny, Dublin 5.
Madam, – The Fine Gael party has met opposition from all fronts regarding its hopes to make Irish optional at Leaving Cert level. Horrified politicians from across the board rallied under the cry of “Irish needs to be accessible to all children!” It seems there has been a failure to communicate. I heard Mr Kenny speak of a policy wherein students aged 17 and 18 are given the choice of learning a language which they might have interest in, and therefore speak (as opposed to forcing Irish on all students, thereby draining any possible enthusiasm from it). The opposition to the plan must have heard a long speech detailing how Mr Kenny will strike Irish from the curriculum at junior infants level and burn all Irish textbooks in the street, most likely punctuated with evil laughter and the sound of thunderclaps in the distance. – Yours, etc,
BARRY NEENAN,
Tullow Road, Carlow.
Madam, – Is it not enough that we have lost everything financially and my children’s futures are mortgaged? I thought that the one thing we would retain is our national heritage. The prospect for the future is indeed bleak if we are to lose even that. Our language is a quintessential part of who we are. We may no longer be free to make our own financial decisions, but we do choose which language we speak. Fine Gael has lost the plot if it is planning to give away this fundamental part of our culture by abolishing compulsory Irish. Have we not lost enough? – Is mise,
MADELEINE MCCARTHY,
Burdett Avenue,
Sandycove Co Dublin.
Madam, – I was unsure of which party I should support in the general election but since Enda Kenny clarified its position on the teaching of the Irish language, I’m going to vote Fine Gael. In advocating the abolition of compulsory Irish after Junior Cert, Fine Gael is taking the first steps in acknowledging the reality of the language’s position in this country.
Irish, we’re told by correspondents such as Mr Rosenstock, is “our cultural legacy” and it apparently takes thousands of hours of compulsory teaching of it to all in primary and secondary school pupils – as well as millions of euro in subsidies, grants and printing costs – to ensure Enda Kenny knows from where his name derives.
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, speaking it as a hobby instead of an obligation, is a far more honest policy than insisting every government publication and road sign is as Gaeilge. The political party that starts down the road of acknowledging the Irish language’s real, not idealised or imagined, place in Irish society has my vote – and Fine Gael is the closest thing to that party. – Yours, etc,
JOE LANGAN,
Baldara Court,
Ashbourne, Co Meath.
The Irish Times – Litreacha chuig an Eagarthóir
Different Fine Gael views on Irish in exam
February 10, 2011
IRISH LANGUAGE: TWO FINE Gael election candidates have differed with their party leader’s approach to making Irish an optional subject only in the Leaving Cert.
Galway West candidates Cllr Seán Kyne and Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames acknowledged the anger about the proposal expressed yesterday by over 300 representatives of the Gaeltacht community, including mná na tithe, at a public meeting in Furbo, Co Galway. The meeting, which was attended by Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív, election candidates Cllr Catherine Connolly (Ind) and Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (SF), agreed to send a delegation to ask Mr Kenny to reverse his party’s policy.
Mr Kyne, who is canvassing in Connemara, said the Fine Gael party members in his area were “very upset” at Mr Kenny’s assertion on Raidío na Gaeltachta’s Adhmhaidín this week that compulsory Irish for the Leaving Cert would be dropped by his party in government. “We understood that the party policy on this was to conduct a review and consult with stakeholders before making a final decision,” Mr Kyne said. “I support the Fine Gael stance that there is a problem with teaching spoken Irish, but I think that taking a decision without consultation will cost us votes in the Gaeltacht areas.”
Ms Healy-Eames said her party was starting a “major debate on the teaching of the language”, but there would have to be an independent review and consultation before a final decision was taken. Mr Ó Cuív, a former Gaeltacht minister, said it appeared Labour and Fine Gael were in agreement on the issue, which would have huge consequences for the language and Irish summer colleges. Máire Denvir of Coláiste Chamuis in Connemara and spokeswoman for Comhchoiste Náisiúnta na gColáistí Samhraidh, the group representing summer Irish colleges, said every child should have the right to study the language, and a separate optional subject on the culture of the language. Fine Gael had “missed the point”; the curriculum had changed and would be in place by 2012.
Peadar MacFhlannchadha, of Conradh na Gaeilge in Galway, said summer colleges were worth EUR14 million in the Galway Gaeltacht alone based on 2007 figures. The meeting acknowledged there were “problems” with the teaching of Irish in schools, but said the 20-year Irish language strategy, published late last year, would address this.
The Irish Times – Lorna Siggins
Kenny’s move on Irish
February 8, 2011
Is Enda Kenny’s latest move, the dropping of Irish from the list of subjects that are compulsory for the Leaving Cert, an evidence-based initiative or is it merely a populist move aimed at maximising his party’s vote?
Who, after all, likes sitting examinations? Ask any leaving certificate student – many would be happy to drop out of anything, whether maths, science, English or Irish, if given the chance.
Mr Kenny told Radio na Gaeltachta this morning that he was very much in favour of the Irish language, but as a compulsory subject it had clearly failed.
Just a few minutes spent perusing comments under the ‘#gaeilge’ hashtag on twitter made it clear the Fine Gael leader’s comments had not landed on deaf ears.
One tweeter wondered how it was that “Mr Kenny wants to make Irish non-compulsory for the Leaving yet a few weeks ago argued that the #dail should debate more as Gaeilge”.
Another said “Enda Kenny has absolutely NO RIGHT to decide the future of the Irish Language. This is a national disgrace!”
“Well if Enda Kenny is still planning on removing Irish as a compulsory language, sorry Fine Gael but you may well have lost my vote!!” tweeted yet another.
Interestingly enough, the closest tweet I could find to anyone supporting Mr Kenny’s initiative was from a student who was annoyed that Mr Kenny’s measure would come into effect the year after she sits the Leaving Cert.
Mr Kenny has been making noises about the subject since 2005 when he announced that he had decided that Fine Gael in government would make the study of Irish entirely voluntary in the last two years of second level.
His plan was criticised then by activists and educationalists alike.
The then Conradh na Gaeilge president Daithi MacCarthaigh who described the move “as very odd” and said it “doesn’t bear up well to scrutiny”.
Mr Kenny’s rationale for reducing the status of Irish was that students would be freed up to love the language and that most of them would be motivated to continue learning it up to and including the Leaving Certificate examination.
The Fine Gael leader might do well then to examine a similar initiative that the Labour Party introduced in Britain back in 2004 when Tony Blair’s government ended compulsory language study for 14 to 16 year olds.
The radical move was intended to facilitate a new approach to learning where students would be “encouraged” to learn a foreign language through the attainment of grades much in the same way as music is taught.
“We have taken a sensible approach to what will make language learning thrive. It is not about forcing young people to study a language; it is about starting in primary schools, finding new and exciting ways of teaching languages and better supporting those who show an aptitude for the subject”, said the then education secretary Mr Alan Johnson.
“The early signs are encouraging and I am confident that these changes will deliver a new generation of linguists”, he added.
However laudable the goal, the move led directly to a language crisis in Britain’s schools with French slipping out of the top 10 of the most popular subjects at GCSE level last year.
The British government’s move led to the extraordinary intervention of the German ambassador who issued an appeal to the British government, calling on it to consider not implementing the plan.
His fears were recently borne out when Belfast’s Queen’s University closed the German Department citing “unsustainable student numbers” as one of the reasons for the move.
Educationalists and businesses alike warned that the 2004 loss of the statutory language provision would lead to far fewer people studying the subjects.
They were vindicated some years later when Alan Johnson ordered a review of the policy after he said the government was “wondering” whether it had made the right decision when it scrapped compulsory language classes.
If implemented, Enda Kenny’s move would also be likely to weaken teaching provision at both schools and universities as was the experience in Britain. The related fall in numbers taking Irish until the Leaving Cert would also be likely to result in a fall in the number of teachers capable of teaching Irish, in turn limiting the possibility of taking Irish for those who wish to study it for the Leaving Cert.
Thousands of languages are at this moment in the process of being driven to extinction by higher status languages and a move to lower the status of Irish, for whatever reason, will more than likely result in harm to the language than not.
If he believes the move to make Irish non-compulsory would support and encourage Irish for all, perhaps using the same rationale, a move towards making maths or English optional should also be on the cards?
Fixing the education system
February 8, 2011
Madam, – Ed Walsh’s article (Education Today, January 25th) pioneers a bizarre new approach to education excellence – starving Irish schools and pupils of even more resources.
His assertion that increasing spending does not make schools better is based on a false premise. The increase in Irish education spending indicated has much to do with capital projects necessary to take account of changing demographic needs and the full inclusion of students who do not have English as a first language and those with special educational needs. Throwing around figures without such a critique is at best an academically flawed exercise and at worst a mischievous one.
Interestingly, he fails to acknowledge the strong science performance when addressing the concerns over reading and maths competencies set out in the recent Pisa international survey on student performance. He neglects to factor in some other vital information. For example, he fails to reference that a greater number of students for whom English is a second language or who have special educational needs were among those surveyed than in previous reports. TUI fully endorses the inclusion agenda, but we contend that it is too poorly resourced to ensure positive learning for all students in an education system riven with inequalities.
Mr Walsh decries what he terms “the major salary increases” enjoyed by teachers yet neglects to mention that they, along with the rest of public servants, earn considerably less than they did two years ago in an increasingly more difficult classroom environment. After failing to blacken the name of a profession with facts, he resorts to referencing “frequently used” threats to the Leaving Cert by teacher unions, a strange fictional flourish with no grounding in reality. TUI would never resort to such a threat.
Meanwhile, his apparent belief that the incoming Minister for Education and Skills should so seismically amend the role of the Irish language in schools unilaterally and without consultation is, frankly, an insult to critical thinking and democracy. Like most education stakeholders, TUI welcomes fair and reasoned discourse and on all aspects education in Ireland, even if we may not agree with every assertion. Mr Walsh’s provocative and flawed submission adds nothing constructive to the debate. – Yours, etc,
BERNIE RUANE,
President,
Teachers’ Union of Ireland,
Orwell Road,
Rathgar,
Dublin 6.
The Irish Times – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
An beatha teanga nó bascadh teanga atá i ndán dúinn?
February 3, 2011
Taighde baoth
January 20, 2011
Seolann an Rialtas straitéis 20 bliain don Ghaeilge
December 23, 2010
Plan could treble number speaking Irish, says Cowen
December 23, 2010
THE NUMBER of daily Irish speakers could be increased from 83,000 to 250,000 if there was a unified approach, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said at Government Buildings yesterday.
Announcing the Government’s 20-year strategy for the Irish language, Mr Cowen said it was a historic occasion and one that “lifts my heart”.
“I believe this strategy is a historic one and that this is a historic day for the Irish language. For the first time since the State was founded there is a comprehensive, long-term plan for Irish,” the Taoiseach said, speaking in Irish.
“Under this plan, it is intended to increase the number of people who speak Irish on a daily basis from 83,000 to 250,000 people within 20 years.
“Bringing that about will be an enormous task but I am certain we can succeed. As the old proverb says: “There is no strength without unity .”
He added: “We should never make excuses for defending Irish nor for promoting the language, inside or outside the Gaeltacht.” Mr Cowen said the cross-party support that had been shown for the strategy was very encouraging: “This is a good development because Irish belongs to us all.”
His own family had attended an Irish-speaking school: “It is wonderful how proud of the language they are; they never have any issue about speaking Irish.”
Minister for Gaeltacht Affairs Pat Carey said it was “a cause for celebration” that the strategy would ensure the State, the language organisations and the general public were working together.
Speaking in Irish he said: “Irish is still identified by Unesco as a language of fragile status. If a language is lost, it is virtually impossible to revive it.”
“Irish is like an unbroken chain which reaches back through 2,000 years of our history. A modern, up-to-date plan for Irish is being launched today for this millennium – a plan whose aim is to ensure that the chain is not broken.”
He said that, “although it is a Government plan, it does not belong to the Government, it belongs to you and to us and it is up to us and to you to ensure it is put into practice”.
Speaking in English, he said: “I am pleased to see members of the English-language media here today. The English-language media have an important role to play in increasing awareness of the Irish language.
“While I am not in any way suggesting that the media become cheerleaders for the Irish language, I do feel, however, that certain media do not always treat Irish language issues with the same seriousness that they treat other issues.”
Fine Gael spokesman on the Gaeltacht Frank Feighan said his party supported the 20-year plan “in principle” with the reservation that the party believed the teaching of Irish should be obligatory until Junior Cert level only and not until the Leaving Cert stage as at present.
TWENTY-YEAR STRATEGY: KEY TARGETS
* Increase the number of daily speakers of Irish from 83,000 to 250,000 and the number of daily speakers of Irish in Gaeltacht areas by 25 per cent.
* The strategy proposes to reconfigure Údarás na Gaeltachta as a new Údarás na Gaeilge agus na Gaeltachta. Its headquarters will be based in the Gaeltacht.
* It will retain an enterprise function and it will also have responsibility for Irish language matters throughout the State in the context of the new Strategy.
* Foras na Gaeilge will continue to be supported and will maintain its existing responsibilities for the language on an all-island basis.
* The Cabinet committee on Irish and the Gaeltacht will maintain oversight of progress of the strategy.
* A total of €1.5 million has been set aside by the department from within existing resources to support the strategy, as required, during its first year.
* The first steps have been taken in establishing a strategy unit in Pat Carey’s Department of Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs that will direct the implementation of the strategy and draft the legislation.
* Up to 20 per cent of places in colleges of education to be retained for students educated through Irish in Gaeltacht schools, in gaelscoileanna and for those attaining a high performance threshold in Irish in the Leaving Certificate.
* Under a new Gaeltacht Act, Gaeltacht status will be based on linguistic criteria. Communities that cannot comply with the criteria will be given two years to develop language plans to maintain their status as Gaeltacht communities.
* New areas may also be included in the Gaeltacht if they meet the linguistic criteria under the new Act.
Irish Times – Deaglán de Bréadún
