Gaelscoil

Bunscoil in Newry

A gaelscoil (Plural: gaelscoileanna) is a type of Irish-medium school in Ireland, found primarily outside of the traditionally Irish-speaking regions.

Students of gaelscoilenna acquire the Irish language through language immersion, and study the standard Irish curriculum through the medium of the Irish language. Gaelscoileanna therefore, have a much higher success rate in producing competent Irish language speakers. In contrast, English-medium schools produce very few fluent Irish language speakers, despite the Irish language being an obligatory subject. This has been attributed to lack of Irish language immersion.

They are the fastest growing school sector in Ireland it is also by far the most successful of all the other gaelic language school movements such as Gaelic medium education teaching Scots-Gaelic in Scotland the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh teaching Manx-Gaelic on the Isle of Mann.

Current situation

There are 50,000 pupils attending gaelscoileanna (both inside and outside the Gaeltacht regions) in 368 primary and secondary schools.

• In the Gaeltacht: 127 primary schools: 29 secondary schools with 15,000 pupils and students.
• Outside the Gaeltacht: 171 primary schools: 43 secondary schools with 35,500 pupils and students.
• Naíonraí: 227 preschool groups with 4,000 children.

Summer schools

There are also summer schools called 'Coláistí Samhraidh', of which there are 47 spread throughout the Gaeltacht regions. Each year, 26,000 students spend three weeks in these schools, speaking Irish only.

Youth groups

The association 'Ógras' provides support to children and young people between the ages of 8-19. There are 35 of these groups spread throughout Ireland. All the activities of these youth groups are carried out exclusively in Irish.

Overview

The Gaelscoil movement has been the biggest and most successful of any of the European, lesser-used languages immersion education programmes. The movement has also been successful in setting up schools in both urban and rural areas. For example, in Dublin there are 31 Irish-medium primary schools and 8 secondary schools while in Cork there are 22 primary schools and 8 secondary schools. The Gaelscoil initiative has also inspired other similar language immersion projects in Europe such as the Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Basque, Occitan, Catalan and Breton schools.

In the Republic of Ireland, Irish is a mandatory subject in primary and secondary education. Between 700,000-800,000 students are taught Irish on a daily basis within the education system; this is similar to the situation of the Welsh language in Wales.

There are currently over 35,500 pupils (50,000 pupils/students total both inside and outside the Gaeltacht) attending gaelscoileanna, with 298 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 72 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí), in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Gaelscoileanna account for 1% of the Northern Irish school system. The largest gaelscoil in Belfast is Coláiste Feirste. There is now at least one gaelscoil in all 32 counties of Ireland and several in each of the bigger cities — for example Derry has nine.

There are currently nine counties nationally that do not have a second-level gaelscoil, Laois, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Down.

	Ulster	Munster	Leinster	Connacht	Total
Bunscoileanna (Primary schools)	41	46	64	18	169
Meánscoileanna (Secondary schools)	11	22	17	13	63

History

The gaelscoileanna originated at the turn of the 20th century during the Gaelic Revival. Bilinguality from an early age is recommended by many linguists, as it helps children become more adept at learning additional languages. Some studies have shown that bilingual children have advantages over monoglot children in other subjects.

Irish schools in the Gaeltacht regions have always used the Irish language. However, the majority of schools outside these regions use English as this is the first language of the majority of people in non-Gaeltacht regions of Ireland (although in the Republic of Ireland, even English-language schools teach Irish as a mandatory subject).

Gaelscoileanna are Irish-language schools in areas where a majority of people speak English as a first language. There are both Irish-speaking primary and secondary schools, called bunscoileanna and meánscoileanna respectively; these are the lower two tiers of education in Ireland before college (coláiste) / university (ollscoil) - third level education.

A gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school. A gaelcholáiste is an Irish-medium secondary school.

The patron body of many gaelscoileanna is An Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna LánGhaeilge Teo.

Statistics

Primary level

Of the 470,000 primary school pupils in the Republic of Ireland, 34,800 do all of their school subjects through Irish while 120,000 pupils use Irish as their Normal Language of Communication for at least one other subject(except Irish). This means that 7% of the schooling population have all their subjects taught through the medium of Irish.

In the Republic of Ireland: (7.4%)

• 25,800 pupils attend Gaelscoileanna (5.4%)
• 9,000 pupils attend Gaeltacht schools (2%)

In Northern Ireland: (2%)

• 2,653 pupils attend Gaelscoileanna

Second level

Of the 335,000 secondary students in the Republic of Ireland, 9,932 do all their school subjects through Irish. This means that 3% of the schooling population have all their subjects through the medium of Irish.

In the Republic of Ireland: (3%)

• 3,030 students attend Gaeltacht secondary schools
• 5,687 students attend Gaelcholáistí
• 981 students attend Irish stream schools
• 234 students are taught some subjects through Irish

In Northern Ireland: (0.5%)

• 632 students attend Gaelcholáistí

Straitéis 20 Bliain - 20 Year Strategy

The 20 Year Irish language strategy published in November 2009, talks about the importance of offering all children in primary schools in Ireland, the opportunity to experience partial-immersion in the formative years, in the early, middle and later years of primary education. Primary teachers would have additional immersion classes to improve their competence in the language. This would involve teaching some subjects such as Mathematics, Science amongst others partially in Irish to pupils.

See also

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

External links

• Template:Ga icon Gaelscoil na Camóige
• Gaelscoileanna
• Naíonraí stats
• Stats on Gaeltacht schools 2004