NUI Galway proposes to increase the number of courses available in Gaeltacht areas such as here in Connemara looking out to the Twelve Bens
The National University of Ireland Galway has submitted a Strategy for the Development of Third Level Education in the Gaeltacht to the Government. The plan aims to increase dramatically the number of courses available at certificate, diploma, degree and postgraduate level for Gaeltacht students. The emphasis is not on language courses per se but on courses taught through the medium of Irish.
Essentially, the university plans to expand its existing Irish-languages centres in Galway city, Carraroe and Carna and to build a new facility, in conjunction with the Queen's University Belfast, in Gweedore, Co Donegal. It is estimated that the capital costs of the venture in its entirety will be £31 million, while running costs will be over £11 million.
Courses will be offered across a wide range of disciplines - for example, translation studies, community development, language planning, courses in education, management, administration and business studies, information technology, the development of natural resources, the arts and media, and communications.
A further sector, developing the provision of services, aims to build on and increase the number of support services available for community development associations by establishing specialist departments in information technology for education, a marine and fishing centre and a language planning centre.
Providing such courses, says the report, will meet the needs of Gaeltacht organisations and State bodies for suitably qualified graduates. Equally importantly, it will benefit Gaeltacht students by allowing them to train and work within their own areas and, hence, preserve and enhance Irish as an everyday medium of communication.
It is envisaged that each of the four Irish-language sites will have state-of-the-art facilities, such as computer and language labs, theatre space, sound and vision studios and libraries and editing facilities.
Citing a report published by the ESRI (1997), it is noted that: "Recent emigrants from the Gaeltacht over five years numbered in the region 6,000 in total, or 1,200 per year ." A large number of these emigrants are well-educated young people who get good jobs elsewhere in Ireland or abroad. Gaeltacht students coming to the end of their education number up to 1,500 per year. Over half of these say that they expect to leave the Gaeltacht to find jobs, even though the majority say they would be happy to live in the Gaeltacht on social grounds."
In response to this research, the NUI Galway development strategy states: "Although it has not been mentioned specifically in the ESRI report, this outward migration from the Gaeltacht will also have a serious detrimental effect on language norms within the families of these young people and amongst the community in general. It represents a complete breakdown in the process of inter-generational language transmission within Gaeltacht families.
A breakdown in language transmission of this nature is a critical factor in the survival or loss of threatened language communities. Unless this process can be reversed it will represent another grave blow to the future of the Gaeltacht as a distinct language community."
Joe Mac Donnacha, development manager in NUI Galway's Oifig na Gaeilge Labhartha, says that strategy will meet the social, cultural and development needs of the Gaeltacht community and is the best and most effective way of developing third-level education through the medium of Irish. The strategy aims to be both complementary to, and integrate with, ongoing university projects. He is hopeful that they will soon be having negotiations with the relevant Government departments "soon" to discuss the document and its implications.
The strategy has been welcomed by Irish-language organisations. Gaelscoileanna, the co-ordinating body for Irish-medium education, said in a statement that the report was a great step forward, which would allow students who had been educated at primary and secondary level through Irish to carry on their studies in that language. Specifically, they praise the emphasis on in-house and preparatory courses for teachers who wished to teach in Irish-language schools and for offering research opportunities into Gaeltacht education and Irish-language education.
The strategy aims to be both complementary to, and integrate with, ongoing university projects
