Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn. The Minister is aware of the importance of promoting competence in a range of languages to support business and employment opportunities in Ireland and abroad. However, there is a range of factors which must be considered in future decisions on language education at different levels and in the context of national economic and social priorities.

The primary school curriculum provides that pupils in Irish primary schools are taught two languages, Irish and English. Modern European languages are being taught at primary level in approximately 510 schools, or 15% of all schools, as part of an initiative that was introduced in 1998. In the participating schools pupils in fifth and sixth classes are taught one of four languages, namely, French, German, Italian and Spanish. However, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has recommended against a further expansion of this initiative at present, citing issues of curriculum overload and difficulties relating to the replicability of the model across the system. The NCCA advice is set out in the context of the changing landscape in Irish primary schools since the primary modern languages initiative was introduced in 1998. The key factors relate to the feedback on curriculum overload, challenges highlighted in reports on language learning in Irish and English, particular issues relating to literacy in disadvantaged schools, and the new needs which have emerged in providing additional English language support for newcomer children.

The Minister's top priority is to advance a national literacy and numeracy strategy in schools and to ensure more time is spent each day on developing literacy and numeracy skills. Given the difficult budgetary position and in the context of the advice from the NCCA, there will be no expansion of the modern languages initiative at primary level in the near term.

At post-primary level there is a range of foreign languages available on the curriculum in schools which includes French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. A post-primary languages initiative is in place since 2000 with the objective of diversifying language provision in schools, focusing particularly on Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Russian. Some 81% of second level pupils study three languages - Irish, English and a continental language - to completion of upper second level, and more than 70% of schools offer two foreign languages or more. Indeed, given entrance requirements for many universities, studying a language is effectively an obligatory requirement, and this is an issue that may need reconsideration in the light of the economic imperative to encourage more students to study the physical sciences at senior cycle.

The Minister is aware of the demand for expansion of the range of languages on offer in post-primary schools, particularly Mandarin Chinese and Polish. However, sustained and continued cumulative reductions in public expenditure will be essential over the coming years to at least 2015, allied with further reductions in public sector numbers. Of necessity this will constrain the degree to which curricular reform can be promoted within schools. The Government is prioritising an agenda of curriculum reform in science and mathematics and improving innovation capacity in second level schools. The funds available in this difficult budgetary context do not allow for the inclusion of additional languages in the curriculum at present. However, the matter will be kept under review. To the extent that it is possible to expand provision into new languages, consideration will also have to be given to discontinuing some existing languages and re-orienting provision towards the languages of more strategically and economically important countries.

Students at third level have access to a wide range of foreign language courses which can be taken as core subjects or in combination with a range of other disciplines. In 2009-2010, 5,200 students were enrolled on programmes with a foreign language component, an overall increase of 16% since 2007. In the institute of technology sector, the IoT Languages Strategy Network is adopting a proactive approach to language learning and training and aims to foster greater inter-institutional collaboration for languages in the sector. The Erasmus study abroad programme has seen an increase in the numbers of students who have taken a study visit or placement abroad. In addition, a wide range of postgraduate and honours degree level programmes in Chinese is offered in the higher education sector.

The new higher education strategy emphasises that institutions must actively engage with stakeholders in the communities they serve and this will be a key priority for implementation. My Department and its agencies will continue to engage with industry to ensure the education system responds in so far as is possible to the emerging needs of enterprise in this area. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter.

See this speech in context