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<h1>'Let's be accurate: There's no proposal to bring in new interviews in Irish for Gaelscoils'</h1>
<h2 class="gmail-main_excerpt">‘The policy affects
the allocation of less than 1% of places in Gaelscoileanna but is of
vital importance to the minority of native speakers involved’, writes
Colmán Ó’Drisceoil.</h2>
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Colmán Ó'Drisceoil </span>
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Principal of Scoil Lorcáin in Monkstown </span>
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<p>HEADLINES SUCH AS ‘Anger over plan to carry out
Gaelscoil interviews in Irish’ and ‘Pre-school children may face
admission interviews in Irish’ have caused understandable alarm and
confusion in recent days.</p>
<p>But there is no proposal to bring in any new ‘interview’ or ‘exam’ or
‘test’ as part of the admissions process in Gaelscoileanna.</p>
<p>All that is being considered is the formal recognition of the current
practice in some oversubscribed Gaelscoileanna which give priority in
their admissions policy to children who speak Irish as a home language.</p>
<p><strong>Vital importance to native speakers </strong></p>
<p>Over 95% of children in Gaelscoileanna come from homes where English
or foreign languages are spoken and this will continue to be the case.
The policy affects the allocation of less than 1% of places in
Gaelscoilanna.</p>
<p>It has a negligible effect on overall admissions policy but is of
vital importance to the small minority of native speakers involved.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these children are unable to achieve full competency
and literacy in their native language in English medium schools.</p>
<p>The policy is of even more importance to Irish speaking families
where there is a child with learning difficulties. These families have
enough difficulties trying to access appropriate supports such as speech
therapy and Irish speaking SNA’s without facing the additional obstacle
of being denied a place in Irish medium education.</p>
<p><strong>Play session </strong></p>
<p>The process by which this priority allocation occurs is generally
that parents state in their application that they are raising the child
through Irish. They are then invited to come to a play session in the
school with the child.</p>
<p>The child plays with some toys and the school staff observe that
Irish is indeed the language of communication between parent and child.
There is no more pressure or stress involved than there would be in
confirming that a child speaks English as a first language.</p>
<p>There are similar policies in place to ensure the rights of English
or French speaking minority populations in Canada, and the Swedish
speaking minority in Finland.</p>
<p><strong>Facts </strong></p>
<p>The rights of speakers of minority language education to mother
tongue education are enshrined in several international conventions such
as the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which
Ireland ratified without reservation in 1992</p>
<p>It seems likely however that the practice of some Gaelscoileanna of
interviewing parents as part of their admission process will be
disallowed under the proposed legislation.</p>
<p>Whatever people’s opinions are on this policy, it is important that
any public debate should be based on the facts, rather than on
misleading and alarmist headlines.</p>
<p><em>Colmán Ó Drisceoil is a member of the Parents Group Cearta
Oideachais and the principal of Scoil Lorcáin in Monkstown, Co Dublin.</em></p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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