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<h1>Gaeltacht education reform must focus on language crisis</h1>
<h2> Opinion: Pupils must be helped to use Irish socially, not just in the classroom </h2>
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<time title="about 16 hours ago">about 16 hours ago</time>
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<span>Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Brian Ó Curnáin</span></span>
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<img title="The first education policy for the Gaeltacht provide an opportunity to refocus State policy on the crisis of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy" alt="The first education policy for the Gaeltacht provide an opportunity to refocus State policy on the crisis of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy" class="gmail-responsive-img" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2983766.1487690335%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" width="620" height="330"> <p class="gmail-selectionShareable">The
first education policy for the Gaeltacht provide an opportunity to
refocus State policy on the crisis of the Irish language in the
Gaeltacht. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy</p>
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">It has been something of a wait: the first education policy for the Gaeltacht (2017-2022) was recently published by the <a class="gmail-search" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_organisation=Department%20of%20Education%20and%20Skills&article=true">Department of Education and Skills</a>.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">We hope the policy will encourage the State to refocus its overall policy on the crisis of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">It provides formal criteria by which schools in the Gaeltacht can be recognised as designated Irish-medium schools.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">It may also encourage the
pro-active management of schools to support the Gaeltacht community and
identity, if implemented with sincerity. This would be a new departure
for the State’s language policy.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Up to now there has been a <em>laissez-faire</em>
vacuum in which schools operated an Irish-medium policy only if it
accorded with their educational philosophy; if there were a high number
of Irish-speaking pupils in the school; and if the teaching staff had
the required proficiency in Irish.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">For the first time, the policy
differentiates between the needs of native Irish speakers and the needs
of learners of Irish, ie English speakers.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">This is a welcome dose of reality
and an honest depiction of the many obstacles to education provision in
the endangered Gaeltacht.</p>
<h4 class="gmail-crosshead">Two challenges</h4>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The overall vision of the new
policy is ambitious but the mechanisms to implement it are ambiguous. To
be effective the policy has to overcome two primary challenges.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Firstly, there is the issue of how to integrate English speakers into Irish-medium schools.</p>
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The policy recognises that English
usually dominates in interactions outside the classroom. This means
that Irish speakers lack, as individuals and as a group, peer
socialisation in their native language.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">But the policy offers no targeted
solutions to this dominant social use of English. It focuses on in-class
supports for Irish, which is already the case in most Irish-medium
Gaeltacht schools.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">It needs to go further, and
support the social use of Irish among pupils. A Gaeltacht school is
surely one in which home speakers of Irish are allowed and encouraged to
socialise in their first language.</p>
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Secondly, there is the challenge of how to integrate a Gaeltacht school into a Gaeltacht community.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The publication of the education
policy provides a much-needed impetus to revisit the well-documented
deficiencies in the 20-year strategy regarding the social vision for the
Gaeltacht.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Without a cohesive and integrated alignment between schools and community, the policy will be ineffective.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Unfortunately, the articulation between the community and the schools via local language plans, backed by <a class="gmail-search" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_organisation=%C3%9Adar%C3%A1s%20na%20Gaeltachta&article=true">Údarás na Gaeltachta</a>, is convoluted and divorced from power.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">In order for such plans, which
include the designated Gaeltacht school, to be effective, a lot of
joined-up thinking and effective implementation is required.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">A bureaucratic danger inherent in
the new policy is that the numerous committees could become irrelevant
talking shops which merely mask the decline of the Gaeltacht and would
risk causing further cynicism in communities.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">These two issues are sensitive and complex, but they need to be clarified if there is to be any hope of success.</p>
<h4 class="gmail-crosshead">Socialisation</h4>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Given that the Gaeltacht is now in
decline, if it is to be revived by the new education policy and
language plans, then two challenges above need to be addressed as
follows:</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Irish-language socialisation in
Gaeltacht schools. Only schools where socialisation is through Irish can
be meaningfully designated as successful Gaeltacht schools. If children
do not use Irish among themselves it is almost impossible for
individuals to speak well, and thus, for Irish to be the communal
language of their peer group.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The vibrant use of Irish in the
schoolyard by children far outweighs so much else. Children’s social use
of Irish is the best indicator of the vitality of Irish and the future
resilience of the community who speak and support it.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Dynamic integration of Gaeltacht
school policy with communal policy will ensure the social, educational
and economic benefits of membership in the Gaeltacht community.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The vision of an integrated
language and community revival is the next logical step. Sufficiently
empowered Gaeltacht communities could use integrated educational and
communal strategies as a mechanism for revival.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">If it addresses the two major
faultlines we have outlined, the new Gaeltacht education policy can
provide the opportunity for supporting re-empowered communities to bring
about a renewed linguistic and social identity in a revived Gaeltacht.</p><p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable"><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/gaeltacht-education-reform-must-focus-on-language-crisis-1.2983770">http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/gaeltacht-education-reform-must-focus-on-language-crisis-1.2983770</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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