Hanafin announces Irish-language initiative

Primary schoolchildren will be able to attend two-week long Department of Education-funded summer camps from next year as part of a Government initiative designed to improve their Irish.

Mary Hanafin

The Minister for Education announced a series of measures this morning aimed at improving the teaching of the language in the country's primary schools.

Speaking at the Irish National Teacher's Organisation annual conference in Killarney today, Ms Mary Hanafin outlined details of the measures.

The initiative includes the appointment of language experts to help improve the fluency and competency of primary school teachers and the creation of two-week-long summer camps for 10- to 13-year-old children to learn Irish through games and sport.

Ms Hanafin said 30 experts, or cuiditheoirí, would be appointed to assist teachers in the development of interesting and effective ways of teaching Irish.

She said priority would be given to supporting camps in disadvantaged areas and that she was looking at providing scholarships for children from disadvantaged areas to go to the Gaeltacht.

In addition, one school day a year - to be known as Dramaíocht trí Ghaeilgeday - will be dedicated to drama through Irish.

The Minister said she hoped the measures would give children a stronger grounding in spoken Irish and would help them to enter second level "with an enthusiasm for learning the language."

She added that she was "completely opposed" to proposals to abandon compulsory Irish for the Leaving Cert. She said it was necessary that young people should "enjoy learning the language" and should not be encouraged to "turn their back on it".

Ms Hanafin also defended the Government 's record on overcrowded classrooms. She said an additional 1,500 primary school teachers have been employed over the past year to help cater for children with special needs."These additional teachers have made an immeasurable difference to the lives of all these children and are also providing vital backup for classroom teachers in helping these children," she said.

"If we had just put these extra teachers into classrooms instead of into these priority areas they would have done a lot to reduce class size in our schools. But then we wouldn't have been able to put the resources that were needed into special education, disadvantage and language support."

Ms Hanafin said 3,400 extra teachers have been employed in schools since 2002 and 500 more teachers were being hired for next September to reduce class sizes.

Issues being debated by the country's 60,000 school teachers at their annual trade union conferences include student misbehaviour, class sizes and the funding of education. The minister told the teachers gathered that a strategy to cater for the needs of non-English speaking children was being developed.