Controversial new Irish syllabus to be reviewed
Monday, August 30, 2010
A
CONTROVERSIAL new Irish syllabus is to be reviewed under an order made
by Education Minister Mary Coughlan before schools even begin teaching
it to second-level students.
In 2007 the then
education minister Mary Hanafin introduced the change to the syllabus to
shift the emphasis to spoken and commutative use of Irish.
Under the changes, marks for the compulsory oral test at Leaving
Certificate will rise from 25% to 40% of students’ final grades from
2012 and the listening exam drops to 10% from as high as 20% for
ordinary level students.
But the Education Minister has told
her curriculum advisers to begin a review of the revised syllabus
following concerns raised with her and Gaeltacht Minister Pat Carey
about possible negative impacts for native Irish speakers and other
students proficient in the language. More than 50 of the country’s 730
second level schools teach students entirely through Irish, including
almost 30 in Gaeltacht areas.
The increased weighting awarded
to oral Irish in the Leaving Certificate was made at the expense of
sections on the history of the language and most of the syllabus’s
literature element.
Opponents of the changes claim the revised
syllabus is not challenging enough for students who are strong at Irish
and is inadequate to maintain a rich speech and writing culture.
The changes were brought in by Ms Hanafin against the advice of the
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the statutory
body now being asked to examine their rollout.
"The Tánaiste
has asked the NCCA to undertake an early review of the implementation of
the revised syllabus, taking account of the issues raised by concerned
groups and also of the experiences of the first cohort of candidates
under the revised assessment system," said Ms Coughlan’s spokesperson.
While the changes are to go ahead for now, a review of any new
syllabus as soon as it begins is believed to be unprecedented and the
council could discuss its terms as early as next month.
Meitheal na Gaeilge ATAL – an umbrella group for concerned schools
organisations and others – said the review is little consolation as the
inevitable damage of the changes will be hard to reverse.
"Our
problem isn’t with 40% for oral Irish but how the rest of the syllabus
is being chopped without piloting it in some schools to see the impacts.
The Government’s strategy for Irish seeks to increase the number of
speakers but I can’t see how they’ll do that by dumbing it down in
schools," said Meitheal na Gaeilge chairwoman Anna Ní Ghallachair.
Ms Coughlan has also turned down the request of lobby groups for a new
optional Leaving Certificate for fluent users of the language. Her
spokesperson said she is not convinced of the merits, given the
duplication of resources that would arise and the possible advantage it
might give some students in accumulating points for college entry.