Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I thank Deputy Kitt for raising this issue and I welcome the opportunity to clarify the position of the decision taken in budget 2012. As part of the budget 2012 decisions, the modern languages in primary schools initiative will cease at the end of the 2011-12 school year. The savings from this measure will go towards the cost of implementing the new national literacy and numeracy strategy, which is a key commitment in the programme for Government. Since becoming Minister for Education and Skills, I have spoken repeatedly about the need to raise educational standards. In terms of curriculum reform, the priorities in the period ahead are to strengthen achievement in literacy and numeracy, to implement reforms in maths, Irish and science and to progress junior cycle reforms at second level.

The modern languages in primary schools initiative was a pilot scheme involving approximately 550 schools and has been operating since 1998. It has not been possible for other schools to join the pilot project for a number of years and the way in which it operated was not capable of being rolled out to all 3,200 primary schools. The decision to end the scheme was based in part on policy advice from a 2008 report by the NCCA, which identified serious issues with curricular overload at primary level. The advice of the NCCA was that modern languages should not be part of the primary school curriculum as an additional and separate subject. The advice on curriculum overload predated the wake-up call on literacy and numeracy from the PISA results. I am taking on board that advice and I am happy that we need to focus on literacy and numeracy. The entire primary curriculum is currently being reviewed by the NCCA in the context of the national literacy and numeracy strategy. The €2.5 million in savings from this measure will go towards the cost of implementing the new national strategy, the total cost of which is approximately €19 million. The 17% of schools currently in the initiative, who have had even more time demands than others in a crowded curricular space, should as a result be better placed to deliver under the strategy.

The focus of the review will be on how best to enhance children's learning in these areas, provide a clear delineation of the learning outcomes required and integrate into the infant cycle the learning experiences from Aistear, the curriculum framework for early childhood education. At post primary level, targeted support is provided to schools to enable them to diversify language provision with a particular focus on Spanish, Japanese, Russian and Italian. Other languages taught at second level include French, German and Arabic. Participation in foreign languages, relative to other subjects, remains high.

The vast majority of students are studying two languages and are therefore developing core skills which will serve them well in future language learning over their lifespan, and there are many opportunities outside the second level system for people to resume language learning.

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