Minister refuses to do U-turn
Minister Mary Hanafin has rejected calls to withdraw her directive that English should be taught to pupils in all-Irish schools from the second term of junior infants.
The Gaelscoileanna organisation had called for the directive to be suspended until further research on the effects of total immersion had been carried out. Ms Hanafin’s own advisory body, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, had also told the minister that schools should be allowed to choose their own policy on immersion until detailed research could be completed.
Standing firm on her decision, however, Minister Hanafin pointed out in the Seanad on 22 Nov that research of this kind would take eight years as it would have to track a child’s progress from junior infants through to sixth class.
“We also expect every school in the country to teach Irish from the beginning, but it’s set in the curriculum that children must be taught in both languages from the start of primary school,” she said.
“If I thought the Irish language would suffer, I wouldn’t be doing this. We know there are kids coming into Gaelscoileanna with no language skills and we can’t deny them from the beginning,” Ms Hanafin said.
Independent Senator Rónán Mullen said it was not too late to have research done on the impact of immersion on English literacy. The Gaelscoileanna would be happy to accept whatever results emerge, he added.
“International research shows that there’s no disadvantage where there is an immersion approach in the first few years, but there has been no research in Ireland,” he said.
Under the new policy, Gaelscoileanna and Gaeltacht schools will no longer have a choice about when to introduce English to classes - it cannot be later than January of Junior Infants year.
The policy, issued to schools last summer by means of a circular, is the subject of a judicial review and the case is expected to be heard in the High Court in the coming months.
Last week, the High Court granted a temporary injunction preventing the new rules being implemented until a full judicial review had taken place. It was sought by Gaelscoil Mhic Easmainn in Tralee, Co Kerry, Gaelscoil Nás Na Rí in Naas, Co Kildare, and patronage body An Foras Pátrúnachta. (Source: Irish Examiner)
November 27th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
“…it’s set in the curriculum”
It is not set in the curriculum, it is recommended, as is much of curriculum. Recommendations, as the Minister so clearly demonstrated with the NCCA’s recommendations on Immersion in gaelscoileanna, they can be taken on board or ignored.
Mary Hanafin also states, “…research of this kind would take eight years as it would have to track a child’s progress from junior infants through to sixth class”.
This has been dismissed by Mícheál Ó Broin, President of Gaelscoileanna Teo. in the Irish-language daily newspaper, Lá Nua yesterday 26/11/07. (My translation: actual text available in Irish at http://www.gaelport.com/index.php?page=clippings&id=2614&viewby=date ) This is another Red Herring, as research could be commissioned to examine the effect that various immersion models have on gaelscoil pupils’ English reading and writing skills on current pupils in sixth class in any number of gaelscoileanna.
December 20th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Virtually every single child going to a Gaelscoil is fluent in English before starting. This is not comparable with English language schools where in general children are not fluent in Irish before starting. It is utterl misleading to suggest these situations are comparable as the Minister does. The evidence does not seem to suggest that English suffers for students of Gaelscoileanna. I absolutely agree that current 6th class students could be assessed to make the necessary comparisons.