Gaelscoil
A gaelscoil (Plural: gaelscoileanna) is an Irish-speaking school, often also co-educational, usually found in Ireland, but outside the Irish speaking Gaeltacht areas. Irish is the working language for these schools. Most of the schools operate under the patronage of Foras Pátrunachta na Scoileanna LánGhaeilge.[citation needed]
There are currently 31,000 pupils attending gaelscoileanna, with 168 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 43 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí), in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. [citation needed] Gaelscoileanna account for 1% of the Northern Irish school system.[citation needed] The largest gaelscoil in Belfast is Coláiste Feirste.[citation needed] There is now at least one gaelscoil in all 32 traditional counties of Ireland and several in each of the bigger cities[citation needed] — for example Derry has nine.
There are currently nine counties on the island of Ireland that do not have a second-level gaelscoil. These are: Laois, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Down.
| Ulster | Munster | Leinster | Connacht | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunscoileanna (Primary schools) | 41 | 46 | 64 | 18 |
| Iar-bhunscoileanna (Secondary schools) | 11 | 22 | 17 | 13 |
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.[1]
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) and university (ollscoil) - third level education.
A Gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school. A Gaelcholáiste is an Irish-medium secondary school.
See also
- Education in Ireland
- Education in Northern Ireland
- Medium of instruction
- Coláiste Ráithín
- Coláiste Eoin
- Scoil Lorcáin
- Gaelscoil Bhaile Brigín
- Gaelic medium education - Scottish Gaelic equivalent in Scotland
- Diwan (school) - Breton medium education in Brittany
References
- ^ Bialystok and Hakuta (1994). In Other Words: The Science and Psychology of Second-Language Acquisition. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-03281-8.
External links
- Gaelscoileanna Teo. - Support organisation for Irish medium Schools
- Template:Ga icon Gaelscoil na Camóige