[lg policy] Ireland: letter regarding languages and university entry

[Harold Schiffman]

 Languages and university entry

  Tue, Mar 10, 2015, 01:08
<http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/languages-and-university-entry-1.2132127#>

*First published:* Tue, Mar 10, 2015, 01:08
   <http://www.irishtimes.com/cmlink/irish-times-letters-1.1364619>

Sir, – Three months after first reports emerged that the National
University of Ireland was considering removing the requirement to present a
foreign language for matriculation purposes, our politicians seem to have
heard about it. The recent interventions
<http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/state-s-language-policy-is-costing-its-citizens-jobs-senator-says-1.2128096>
in the Seanad, although welcome, have come late in the day (“Senators raise
languages policy”, March 5th). Indeed, if Senator Sean Barrett is correct,
possibly too late.

One cannot help having some sympathy for the universities. On their
shoulders lies the entire responsibility for the continued central role of
language study in our schools. It should never have come to this. However,
for them to commit such academic vandalism now, just as a national strategy
in the area is finally being drawn up, is frankly inexcusable.

There is virtually unanimous agreement that school-leavers and graduates in
Ireland need more language skills and not fewer.

Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan has herself acknowledged this and is
reported to favour the use of bonus points to promote the study of
languages.

It is not impossible that the final strategy which emerges following the
recent public consultation run by her department will resolve matters to
the satisfaction of the universities.

In the interim, however, to act in this arbitrary and precipitous manner
could have the most serious of consequences in post-primary schools.

In my experience as a teacher of foreign languages, there can be a very
poor appreciation of the value of foreign languages among pupils and indeed
many parents. They are often seen as an emigration skill. Many teenagers
have difficulty imagining a life very different to that which they
currently lead and will often assert that they will never need to use the
language after school. The fact that there are thousands of jobs in Ireland
for which language skills are desirable or even necessary is simply not
getting through in schools. Indeed, in its submission to the Department of
Education on the foreign languages strategy, the employers’ group Ibec
called for better awareness among guidance counsellors regarding the real
need for language skills in Ireland today.

Should the universities be allowed to proceed in a vacuum, the uptake of
languages at senior cycle will surely fall. Where this happens,
higher-level and ordinary-level students will find themselves in
mixed-ability classes where teachers will face an impossible task in
catering to their very different needs.

The losers in this scenario will far exceed the winners and, in years to
come, we will find ourselves akin to other English-speaking countries in
seeking solutions to a severe skills shortage that was entirely
preventable.

This must not be allowed to happen and the Minister for Education must
intervene to stop this appalling proposal. – Yours, etc,

BARRY HENNESSY,

Donabate,

Co Dublin.
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/languages-and-university-entry-1.2132127

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