[lg policy] More Gaelscoileanna must be opened to breathe life into Irish

Tue Mar 13 18:47:28 UTC 2018

 More Gaelscoileanna must be opened to breathe life into Irish ESRI finds
23% of parents would choose a local Gaelscoil for children if available
about 18 hours ago
Caoimhín Ó hEaghra

13
<https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/more-gaelscoileanna-must-be-opened-to-breathe-life-into-irish-1.3424365#comments>
[image: Students from Gaelscoil Cois Feabhail Choir, Movill, Co Donegal, at
Government Buildings for the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge last December: A
vision for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter
of the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native
language day to day. Photograph: Alan Betson:]

Students from Gaelscoil Cois Feabhail Choir, Movill, Co Donegal, at
Government Buildings for the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge last December: A
vision for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter
of the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native
language day to day. Photograph: Alan Betson:
<https://www.irishtimes.com/cmlink/the-irish-times-debate-1.1319211>

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No new Gaelscoil will open in the State this September in a year which has
been designated as Bliain na Gaeilge.

That stark fact is not the fault of Bliain na Gaeilge. Such initiatives are
hugely positive and welcome but cannot alone transform the fortunes of the
Irish language. To save and enhance Irish we need to create new fortresses
of the language outside its traditional heartlands through establishing
large numbers of new Gaelscoileanna.

In the past, saving the language through education felt like pushing a
boulder up a hill. But those days are long gone as the demand for
Irish-medium education grows from the ground up. Addressing the demand for
it is now not only a necessary action, but would also be a popular one.

There is a lot of catching up to be done: of the 3,000-plus primary schools
in the country, only 8.3 per cent are Irish medium, with just 145
gaelscoileanna outside the Gaeltacht.

Economic and Social Research Institute findings in 2015 established that 23
per cent of respondents would choose a local Gaelscoil for their children
if one were available, and further surveys which we have conducted all over
the country confirm it.

The evidence for that level of demand is also anecdotal: debates about the
difficulty of getting into a Gaelscoil occur not because we want to be
exclusive – far from it – they happen because we don’t have enough places.
As a result gaelscoileanna have long lists of people from all backgrounds
wanting to get in.

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We provide Catholic and inter-denominational ethos models also, and so can
meet diverse needs

At least 200 new gaelscoileanna would be needed over the next five-10 years
to even begin to meet this demand. Given the priority, we are told the
language is given and all the work which has been to done to revive it, we
find ourselves in 2018 with almost one-quarter of parents willing to send
their children to a Gaelscoil, and we cannot accommodate them – with not a
single new Gaelscoil due to open this year. This level of demand is the
most open goal the State has ever seen in its Irish language policy, and
yet we cannot puck the sliotar into the empty net.
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Ethos and life

How did we get to this point? It has happened for any number of reasons:
the slow pace of change in response to parental demand, but also the sense
that the only issue about diversity in Ireland relates to ethos. This year
is the 25th anniversary of An Foras Pátrúnachta, the largest patron body
for Irish-medium schools, and since then we have been establishing schools
using a variety of ethos models.

Our first school, established in Cork in 1993, is multidenominational as
are all the new schools we have opened in recent years. We provide Catholic
and inter-denominational ethos models also, and so can meet diverse needs,
and do it as gaeilge, allowing the State to achieve two vital national
objectives at once: providing choice of ethos and breathing new life into
the language.

Obviously the total number of schools to meet demand cannot be achieved
overnight but what we need now is an urgent process

More though is needed: we need not just new gaelscoileanna, but also the
transfer to Irish-medium of at least one existing English-medium school in
many towns as well as in many areas within our cities to ensure that all
parents have the realistic opportunity to send their child to a Gaelscoil,
at both primary and post-primary level.

Obviously the total number of schools to meet demand cannot be achieved
overnight but what we need now is an urgent process with the stated
ambition to establish hundreds of Gaelscoileanna rather than dozens. To do
that, we have to think short, medium and long term. Project Ireland 2040
sets ambitious targets for many things – the process surely provides an
opportunity to address the deficiency in Irish-medium school places, if
someone wishes to seize it.
Multilingual environment

A vision for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least
one-quarter of the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak
our native language day to day. We want to see that same portion of parents
– from wherever they hail – choosing to educate their children in a
multilingual environment, improving their own Irish as they do.

Children can learn multiple languages and are deeply enriched by it
educationally. We have recently launched an initiative which sets as its
goal that all children in our primary schools will be proficient in three
languages when they leave. If you doubt that is possible, visit Switzerland.

This is our vision: a vibrant Irish language spoken by ever-increasing
numbers of our young, and the success of the language recognising and
celebrating our roots while we embrace a global future through learning in
a multilingual context. Isn’t that a vision everyone could unite behind?
Would a commitment to do that not be a proper legacy of Bliain na Gaeilge?

Táimid réidh chun ár gcuid a dhéanamh.

Caoimhín Ó hEaghra is ard-rúnaí of An Foras Pátrúnachta, the largest patron
of Irish-medium schools

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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