Gaelscoil

A gaelscoil (plural: gaelscoileanna) is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas.

Sign at Irish-medium primary school in Newry, Northern Ireland.

Dublin City and County has a number of Irish-medium schools.

Students in the gaelscoileanna acquire the Irish language through language immersion, though they study the standard curriculum. Gaelscoileanna, unlike mainstream schools, have the reputation of producing competent Irish-language speakers. English-medium schools, in contrast, produce relatively few fluent Irish speakers, despite the Irish language being an obligatory subject in the Republic of Ireland in both primary and secondary school. This has been attributed in part to the lack of Irish-language immersion programs. The present government has promised reforms in curriculum and teaching training for Irish in English-medium schools.

Overview

Gaelscoileanna enjoy strong support among members of the urban professional class and are generally found in middle-class suburbs. They also exist in disadvantaged areas, though it has been claimed that in those areas they cater primarily for middle-class children from elsewhere. Their success is due to effective (though limited) community support and an efficient administrative infrastructure. They are distinguished by being the product, not of state policy, but of a genuine community movement.

Gaelscoileanna have undergone a striking expansion over the last few decades, though there are now concerns that recent rules limiting the founding of new schools may affect Irish-medium education, especially when the demand is greater than the supply.

In 1972 there were only 11 such schools at primary level and five at secondary level in the Republic. Now there are 172 at primary level and 39 at secondary level. When similar schools from Northern Ireland are added, there are in total 298 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 72 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí). These schools educate over 37,800 students, not counting around 4,000 children in Irish-medium preschools. Coláiste Feirste is the only second-level Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland. There is now at least one gaelscoil in each of the 32 counties of Ireland and several in some larger towns and cities. There are only nine counties nationally that do not have a secondary level Irish-medium school: Laois, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Down.

Social status and function

Gaelscoileanna have acquired a reputation for providing excellent academic results at a moderate cost. They have been described as a system of “positive social selection,” giving better than average access to tertiary education and the social and employment opportunities which follow. An analysis of “feeder” schools which send students on to tertiary level institutions shows that 22% of Irish-medium schools send all their students on to tertiary level, compared to 7% of English-medium schools.

It has been argued that the bilingualism resulting from early acquisition of another language is of general intellectual benefit and helps children to learn a third or fourth language. Irish advocates of the immersion approach sometimes refer to studies showing that bilingual children have advantages over monoglot children in other subjects.

Irish language by province

	Ulster	Munster	Leinster	Connacht	Total
Bunscoileanna (Primary schools)	45	45	66	18	174
Meánscoileanna (Secondary schools)	11	22	17	14	64

There are some 91,825 Irish speakers in Ireland with more than half of these located in the Gaeltachts and the rest are in Irish-medium education in all four provinces. There are many tens of thousands more Gaeltacht speakers living in regions outside the Gaeltacht.

Leinster

There are 20,647 Irish language speakers in the province of Leinster, 1,299 native speakers in the Meath Gaeltacht and this doesn't count the 19,348 attending the 66 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 15 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) all across the province.

Ulster

There are 21,222 Irish language speakers in the province of Ulster, with 14,456 native speakers in the Donegal Gaeltacht (areas where 30-100% of the population are native speakers) while 1,427 are living in areas where it is spoken by less than 30%.^{[citation needed]} There is also the 5,339 attending the 44 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 7 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) across the province.^{[citation needed]}

Munster

There are 21,956 Irish language speakers in the province of Munster, with 9,737 native speakers in the Munster Gaeltacht areas of Cork, Kerry and Waterford and there is also the 12,219 attending the 45 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 15 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) across the province.

Connacht

There are 28,000 Irish language speakers in the province of Connacht, with 18,358 native speakers in the Connacht Gaeltacht areas of Galway and Mayo(in areas where 30-100% of the population are native speakers) while there are 5,300 living in areas where Irish is spoken by less than 30%. There is also the 4,265 attending the 18 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 3 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) outside the Gaeltacht across the province

Future Meánscoileanna to open

Three new second-level gaelscoileanna are to open in Ireland by 2014 - Coláiste Ghlór na Mara in Balbriggan, Coláiste Deisceart Átha Cliath in Dundrum and Gaelcholáiste Charraig Uí Leighin in Carragaline in Cork.

Straitéis 20 Bliain - 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language

The function and future of the gaelscoileanna will be affected by the 20 Year Irish Language Strategy, published in November 2009. This emphasises the importance of offering all children in primary schools in Ireland the opportunity to experience partial immersion in the formative years of primary education. It calls for primary teachers to have additional immersion classes to improve their competence in the language. This would involve teaching some subjects such as Mathematics and Science in Irish. Such a policy, if implemented effectively, would mean that the gaelscoileanna were no longer the only means of promoting bilingualism in schoolchildren.

See also

• Education in Ireland
• Education in Northern Ireland
• List of Gaelic medium primary schools in Northern Ireland
• Gaelic medium education in Scotland - Scottish Gaelic equivalent in Scotland
• Manx medium education
• Welsh medium education
• Diwan (school) - Breton medium education in Brittany
• Ikastola, similar education centre in Basque language.
• Medium of instruction

See also

• list of gaelscoileanna for the 32 Counties of Ireland
• (Irish) Gaelscoil na Camóige
• Gaelscoileanna
• Naíonraí stats
• Stats on Gaeltacht schools 2004
• Gaeltacht Comprehensive Language Study 2007
• Gaelscoil stats 2010-2011