Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this topical issue on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills. I thank Deputy Martin for raising the issue and welcome the opportunity to clarify the decision taken in the context of budget 2012 on ending of the modern languages in primary schools initiative. As part of the budget 2012 decisions that have been announced, the modern languages in primary schools initiative will cease at the end of the 2011-12 school year. Since becoming Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn has 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, implement reforms in maths, Irish and science and progress junior cycle reform.

The modern languages initiative was a pilot scheme which involved approximately 550 schools and had 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 National Council for Curriculum and Assessment which identified serious issues with curricular overload at primary level. The NCCA recommended that modern languages should not be part of the primary school curriculum as an additional and separate subject at present. The advice on curriculum overload predated the wake up call on literacy and numeracy triggered by the PISA results. The Minister is taking that advice on board, with particular regard to the demands on time that will result from a heightened focus on literacy and numeracy.

The primary curriculum is currently being reviewed by the NCCA in the context of the national literacy and numeracy strategy, Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life. The 17% of schools currently involved in the initiative faced greater time demands than others in a crowded curricular space and should now 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 clearer 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 remains high relative to other subjects. 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 lifespans. There are also many opportunities outside the second level system for people to resume language learning.

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