Ms Arlene Forster:

The first point I will make picks up on that final point about the C1 and goes back to my response earlier to Senator Clifford-Lee. We drew in broad terms on the CEFR, but there is not a direct link between T1 and C1 in the CEFR. There are a couple of other points, in addition to what Mr. Ó Buachalla said, to be made in response to Deputy Moynihan's question around the overall purpose of the T1 specification. Mr. Ó Buachalla has outlined that language enrichment piece. Another important point about the T1 specification is the contribution that learning through that specification can make to the young person's overall education right across the curriculum, because they are using the Irish language to access the full curriculum. There are dividends and benefits to the student, beyond the Irish classroom.

The point I would make, in terms of the value or merit in taking the T1 specification, is the point mentioned earlier about further enabling these young people as active, engaged contributors in the Irish communities in which they live day-to-day, and as young citizens. When you put all of that in the mix, together with the point Mr. Slattery was making, it is a different way of conceptualising the differences between the T1 and T2 specifications.

The T1 specification is about enabling the young person and providing him or her with a deeper, more engaging and richer experience of the Irish language. In the case of the T2 specification, it is about building on and continuing the young person's language acquisition. The two categories of young person are coming to these specifications from quite different places and positions in terms of their overall language learning. That is important in terms of understanding the differences in what the specifications are attempting to do for young people as language learners and how those specifications will involve the young people in the language learning experiences that take place in the classroom, whether they are in a scoil T1 or a scoil T2.