Nature of Irish exam makes primary teaching a no mans land
Issued : Wednesday 23 November, 2005
Statement by Jan O'Sullivan TD
Minister of State, Department of Environment, Community and Local Government with special responsibility for Housing and Planning
Labour Party Spokesperson on Education, Jan O’Sullivan, has welcomed Minister Mary Hanafin’s initiative to attract more men into primary teaching, but warned that much more radical steps must be taken, including changes in the teaching and examination of Irish, in order to prevent our classrooms becoming an effective no-mans land.
Deputy O’Sullivan commented, “The report launched by Minister Hanafin today, identifies the requirement of holding an Honours in Irish at Leaving Certificate level as one of the main obstacles to men entering the teaching profession.
“Surely now is the time, therefore, to adjust the marking system in Leaving Cert Irish to ensure that the majority of marks are given for oral skills. This would have the subsequent benefit of placing more emphasis on actually getting young people to speak the language, rather than simply studying it.
“While a promotion campaign and the setting of targets are positive measures, the Minister must not dodge the more difficult issue of changing the approach to Irish throughout the school system.
“Only 18% of primary teachers are male. In Colleges of Education, the figure is even lower – 11%. This is an extremely worrying trend.
“If the Minister wants to see equal numbers of male and female teachers, and if she recognises the shortage of men achieving the requisite standard of Higher Grade Irish is key to this, she should weight the examination system in favour of spoken rather than written Irish, to give young men a better chance of reaching the standard. This is only one of the many reasons why the transformation in approach to the Irish language is needed.”
