Gaelscoileanna are top of the class

IN his letter published on November 26, Maurice Fitzgerald unfairly attacked the Irish medium education sector in an intemperate assault on faith-based schools and their role in Irish education.

Of course he may be forgiven as Education Minister Mary Hanafin appears to be blind to the benefits of Irish-medium education and, in particular, the total early immersion model.

In schools where total early immersion in Irish is on offer, pupils are taught all their subjects through Irish only for the first year at least at primary school.

Parents who send their children to Irish medium schools do so not because of any notion of exclusivity, but for the very simple reason that it is an excellent guarantee of a first-class education.

According to research undertaken in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge at NUI Galway, children who attend gaelscoileanna performed consistently and significantly better than the national average in the standardised English reading tests carried out in all primary schools in second and fifth classes before the summer.

According to this research, 42% of children achieved a mark of 7/10, which is 9% more than the national average, while 22% recorded a score in the 0-4/10 range, approximately 11% less than the national average.

Research carried out in Welsh-medium schools indicated that pupils who undergo immersion education achieve better results in science and mathematics than those in English-medium schools. This research puts a significant hole in the reasoning being advanced by Minister Hanafin in her ill-advised attempt to compel Irish-medium schools to teach English for two-and-a-half hours per week to junior infants. It seems to me this is forcing English down the throats of children against the wishes of their parents.

Far from promoting intolerance, as Mr Fitzgerald alleges, gaelscoileanna welcome pupils from all backgrounds, North and South, and have also successfully integrated many pupils from immigrant backgrounds. The majority of gaelscoileanna operate under the patronage of An Foras Patrúnachta, a secular body which promotes interdenominational education. While there’s an ever-increasing interest in the Irish language, there appears to be some who still cling to an ancient intolerance and, dare I say, anti-Gaeilge fundamentalism.

They are misguided. A society which celebrates diversity in terms of religion, language and cultural background is far healthier than that apparently being advanced by your illiberal correspondent. Mr Fitzgerald’s concept of tolerance is another person’s vision of sectarianism.

As a parent, I have no hesitation in sending my children to a school in which the teaching medium is Irish because I know that despite the meagre resources on which they operate, the quality of education is second to none.

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