Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the issue of the need for the Minister to provide an update on the provisions in place to assist primary schools in the teaching of foreign languages within our education system. Every Member will know and appreciate the importance of modern languages and of familiarising ourselves with such languages, particularly in the ever more globalised and interdependent world in which we live and in which our economies and societies operate. We also know, and this is clear both from the point of view of experts and anecdotally, that the younger a person learns a language, the greater their ability to soak it up, absorb it and become familiar and fluent with it.

I wanted to raise this issue because I visited a school in County Wicklow recently, the Jonathan Swift national school in Dunlavin, and was struck by the efforts being made there to teach the school pupils Spanish. I wish to share some of the comments made by the school principal in an e-mail to me. She said that the children are very much at a disadvantage for their future careers because of the lack of other language skills. To this end, the school was part of the initiative and pilot scheme for modern language tuition, which has since been abandoned. It had built up a lot of resources and skills from being part of this programme, so decided to keep it going using its own resources. The children love learning Spanish and it has improved their attitude to learning Irish greatly, which they now see as another language. This school has been extremely creative. It has a Spanish secretary within the school, it has twinned with a Spanish school and the students come on exchanges. I visited during a recent exchange when there were teachers and students from Spain there. The school has been creative and has developed a culture and relationship with other schools.

I understand the modern languages scheme was a pilot scheme and know there is a body of work being done in regard to literacy and numeracy and how modern languages can fit into that. However, there is a need to report progress on this. This is not just my opinion. As recently as the week before last, the Minister for Education and Skills urged more Irish students to learn Chinese and pointed out the importance of Mandarin as the most widely spoken language in the world. He also spoke about how big a market the Chinese market is from the economic point of view. Therefore, I know the Minister and Minister of State recognise the need for educational skills in the area of languages.

However, when it comes to where we stand globally and in regard to our European colleagues, the situation is embarrassing. An OECD report from last year, June 2013, entitled Education at a Glance, used the school year 2010-11 as a reference point. It found that modern foreign languages account for an average of 6% of compulsory instruction time across the OECD at primary level and 7% of compulsory instruction time across the EU, in contrast to a near negligible amount in Ireland for that age group. When we look at the table on page 18 of that report, we see the "No Grade" that Ireland gets.

I know the situation here is further complicated by the fact that our students, quite rightly, learn Irish as well, that there is a limit in terms of the length of the school day and that the Government has focused on numeracy and literacy. I understand the rationale behind that. However, we must recognise the importance of modern languages. We must work out how we can fit this into our curricula and into numeracy and literacy, because foreign languages can be dealt with in that context also.

Learning and introducing people to languages at second level, when their European and global peers have been introduced to a foreign language perhaps ten years earlier, puts our students at a disadvantage. The Minister of State and his ministerial colleagues and people in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will have seen that when it comes to trying to fill vacancies, including back to the Paypal jobs in Louth, there is a demand and requirement for applicants to have a second modern language. While we cannot fix this overnight with our primary system, we can send out a clear message that we want our students to be more proficient in modern European languages and languages like Mandarin Chinese, as the Minister suggested.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to the House the position in regard to the teaching of modern languages. There is considerable investment by the Department in language provision across all levels of education and officials are currently working on the development of a language strategy which will address language learning at all levels of education, including primary level.

At primary level, the Department's policy, as detailed in the Government's National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy 2011, is that pupils will learn two languages, English and Irish. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is currently developing an integrated language curriculum for primary schools, in the context of the national literacy and numeracy strategy. A consultation on the draft curriculum from infants to second class is under way and will remain open until 11 July.

The new curriculum is drafted in the belief that language plays a vital part in the expansion of the student's conceptual framework and growth of the student's conceptual knowledge, dispositions and skills. The draft curriculum underlines that language learning is a developmental process, in which students engage at their individual rate or pace. Learning languages, whether at home, in an early years setting, in school or in community settings enables children to extend their linguistic experiences and to deepen their understanding of and connection with culture and heritage.

Within the draft language curriculum, integration is defined in terms of interaction between the three strands of oral language, reading and writing; connecting language across the curriculum; and the transfer of skills learned across languages. Although discrete language skills associated with each strand are essential, engaging with all three strands together enables the child to become a more effective communicator. In this context, it is important to note that Ireland is a linguistically and culturally diverse country which has two official languages, English and Irish. However, most schools and classrooms include children whose home language is a language other than English or Irish.

Languages, by their nature, are interconnected and developing skills in one language will help children develop similar skills in another language, provided they have adequate exposure to the language and adequate motivation and opportunities to engage with the language. An explicit focus on integration between languages enables children to make cross-lingual connections and to develop an awareness of how language works, which leads to learning efficiencies for students. The intention is that the new integrated curriculum will provide primary students with an excellent base to transfer to learning modern foreign languages in post-primary school.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for that informative and timely reply. I welcome the development of a language strategy and look forward to seeing how that will interact with our numeracy and literacy strategy.

The Minister of State correctly pointed to the complexity of the Irish education system, in terms of this country having two official languages, both Irish and English, and I understand from engaging with parents and teachers that our curriculum at both primary and second level can be quite jam packed. However, we must look at how we integrate the learning of modern languages within the context of our overall numeracy and literacy skills within our schools. To that end, the most constructive line in the Minister of State's response is the one that stated: "However, most schools and classrooms include children whose home language is a language other than English or Irish".

This is about how we harness the potential of the diversity within our classrooms, where we have children in our classrooms whose native tongue is not Irish or English. Rather than making them conform to the school setting, how can we encourage the other children to benefit from the experience of having a linguistically diverse classroom? This is something we should examine. We must get to a point where our students are leaving primary school not as linguistic scholars, but with a foundation in European languages or languages like Mandarin Chinese. This is perhaps a policy decision that needs to be taken.

I call on the Minister of State and his officials to look at the example of Jonathan Swift national school, which has not received extra funding. The funding stream has gone since 2012, but it has continued in a progressive and creative way to keep the links with the Spanish school, to keep the twinning programme going and to keep up the exchange. It is not just an exchange of language.

It is also an exchange of culture. I would also encourage the Department, in the context of European funding for twinnings, to look at how we can encourage more schools to twin with other European schools. Much of the debate to date has been about why the pilot scheme was axed and what would replace it but let us be creative about embracing foreign languages. There are many resources in schools, including secretaries, ancillary staff and students who come from foreign countries. Let us look at how we can harness those resources and pull everything together in the context of our literacy strategy.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I agree completely with everything Deputy Harris has said. The wonderful twinning opportunities available through the Comenius project are only now becoming apparent to a number of schools across the country, which allow for intercultural exchanges between schools across the teaching profession and the student body. I agree with the point the Deputy makes about availing of the opportunity to benefit from the fact that there are many children in school here whose native language is neither English nor Irish. There are significant opportunities that have yet to be developed in that area and we need to think through how we can do that. We should never underestimate the power of schools to innovate and provide new learning experiences with very few resources. I have seen that happening in the context of technology and digital learning in schools. When teachers and students combine their innovative and creative skills, they can be quite powerful. What has been achieved in many schools in the field of digital learning could also be replicated in the area of enhancing foreign language skills.

As I pointed out earlier, a new language strategy is being developed which, when finalised, should ensure that language learning is considered as a coherent whole across all levels of education. At primary level the focus of the new curriculum, for the moment, must be on English and Irish. The integrated approach should help children to transfer skills acquired in one language to another language and so establish a sound foundation for the learning of a foreign language in post-primary school. I must reiterate the importance of a continuing focus on the implementation of the literacy and numeracy strategy.