Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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308. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will consider Chinese as a language subject for the leaving certificate as Chinese is the most important language subject for employment today and into the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9555/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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There are a range of languages available for the Leaving Certificate in our schools. In addition to English and Irish there is French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Arabic and Latin. In addition there are also a suite of non-curricular languages such as Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian. There is a Chinese module available as an option for the transition year programme.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is currently finalising a short course in Chinese language and culture for the new Junior Cycle, following its evaluation of submissions received as an outcome of a consultation process which finished last month.

At present it is not planned to include Chinese within the suite of languages available for Leaving Certificate students.