DONEGAL NORTH EAST candidate Jimmy Harte has said that the Labour Party is committed to the retention of Irish as one of the three core compulsory subjects for the Leaving Certificate.
Mr Harte also told donegaldaily.com that the teaching of Irish did need significant reform.
“An objective of language policy should be to ensure that students leaving school should be able to conduct a conversation in Irish with their peers. This is not always the case at present,” said the Labour man.
“Labour in government will conduct a thorough reform of the Irish curriculum in keeping with the aims of the Twenty Year Strategy on the Irish language.
“We want to create a situation where teachers and students have an opportunity to improve their spoken Irish on an ongoing basis. This can be done partly by reforming the curriculum so greater emphasis is placed on oral and aural skills.
“Teachers need to be supported so that this can be done.
“We believe that opportunities should be provided within the existing continuous professional development budget to primary and secondary teachers to attend courses in the Gaeltacht during the summer to maintain and improve their Irish language abilities throughout their careers.
“Labour is also committed to the longer term goal of introducing a second subject at primary level that would be taught through Irish. Working in cooperation with all the stakeholders, we will explore how this can best be achieved.
“The goal of normalising the use of Irish through teaching art, music or drama is one possible way of promoting the use of spoken Irish.
“In government, Labour will implement its strategy for improving literacy in schools. This straety will include the improvement on Irish language literacy in gaelscoileanna and in Gaeltacht schools with appropriate adaptations of the strategy developed in consultation with educational stakeholders.”
