[lg policy] Gaeltacht education reform must focus on language crisis

[Harold Schiffman]

 Gaeltacht education reform must focus on language crisis Opinion: Pupils
must be helped to use Irish socially, not just in the classroom
about 16 hours ago
Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Brian Ó Curnáin
[image: 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]

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

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It has been something of a wait: the first education policy for the
Gaeltacht (2017-2022) was recently published by the Department of Education
and Skills
<http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_organisation=Department%20of%20Education%20and%20Skills&article=true>
.

We hope the policy will encourage the State to refocus its overall policy
on the crisis of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht.

It provides formal criteria by which schools in the Gaeltacht can be
recognised as designated Irish-medium schools.

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.

Up to now there has been a *laissez-faire* 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.

For the first time, the policy differentiates between the needs of native
Irish speakers and the needs of learners of Irish, ie English speakers.

This is a welcome dose of reality and an honest depiction of the many
obstacles to education provision in the endangered Gaeltacht.
Two challenges

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.

Firstly, there is the issue of how to integrate English speakers into
Irish-medium schools.

   - Why is it so hard to get a place in a Gaelscoil?
   <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-a-place-in-a-gaelscoil-1.2984851>
   - Hard at play: Teaching children a lost art
   <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/hard-at-play-teaching-children-a-lost-art-1.2983936>
   - We cannot afford to send our daughter to university. What are her
   options?
   <http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/we-cannot-afford-to-send-our-daughter-to-university-what-are-her-options-1.2983811>

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.

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.

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.
ADVERTISEMENT

Secondly, there is the challenge of how to integrate a Gaeltacht school
into a Gaeltacht community.

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.

Without a cohesive and integrated alignment between schools and community,
the policy will be ineffective.

Unfortunately, the articulation between the community and the schools via
local language plans, backed by Údarás na Gaeltachta
<http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_organisation=%C3%9Adar%C3%A1s%20na%20Gaeltachta&article=true>,
is convoluted and divorced from power.

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.

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.

These two issues are sensitive and complex, but they need to be clarified
if there is to be any hope of success.
Socialisation

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:

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.

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.

Dynamic integration of Gaeltacht school policy with communal policy will
ensure the social, educational and economic benefits of membership in the
Gaeltacht community.

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.

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.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/gaeltacht-education-reform-must-focus-on-language-crisis-1.2983770


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