Sir, – I write in relation to “Fluent Irish requirement ‘a barrier’ to more working-class young people becoming teachers” (Education, October 9th). The headline, which grabs attention, identifies efforts to support the Irish language as a barrier to social mobility, and thus a factor in class-based inequality in Ireland.
The piece itself, however, focuses on the impressive achievement of a woman from a working-class background in becoming a teacher.
As the article says, she attended Irish-medium schools at both primary and post-primary level. Perhaps that was a factor in supporting her success, although this is not remarked on in the piece.
Opinion polls consistently evidence that a clear majority of Irish people support efforts to sustain Irish and ensure it flourishes, including through the education system (both as a subject in English-medium schools, and through Irish medium schools).
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However, numbers in Gaelscoileanna (relative and absolute) are falling. Dedicated support for Irish teachers in other schools is more or less absent. Enabling students to continue into Irish-medium secondary education is impossible in many parts of the country, for lack of schools.
Perhaps then, the challenge is to provide wider support in this way to enable potential teachers from all backgrounds to participate in this, as they wish to do.
That would of course require you to write a different headline, something like “Lack of investment in schools in working-class areas is a barrier to young people becoming teachers”.
The choice between these will be for your journalists and headline writers, depending, I suppose, on whether they see Irish as a valuable resource for all, or a mere barrier to progress, a scapegoat to be blamed for wider political failures. – Yours, etc,
JOHN HARRINGTON,
Director,
Ysgol Graddedigion Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol Cymru
(Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences),
Cardiff University,
Wales.
A chara, – Your headline does not accurately reflect the content of the article.
The implication is that fluency as Gaeilge is the only barrier to those from poorer areas accessing places on third-level courses to study teaching. In fact, the DCU Educational Disadvantage Centre report lists fluency as one of many barriers.
As a former student of a Gaelscoil in a disadvantaged area, I find it astounding that a story of this nature leads with this specific headline. It shouldn’t require explaining that the nature of teaching requires a certain level of competence in the subjects that you teach, Irish included. I look forward to an article decrying a lack of proficiency in biology as a barrier to entering the medical profession. – Is mise,
FÉLIM Ó MAOLMHÁNA,
Leamhcán,
Co Átha Cliath.
