Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas don Seanadóir Ó Broin os rud é gur ardaigh sé an ábhar tábhachtach seo ag tús an tSeanaid. Is ábhar an-thábhactach é agus ceann a bhfuil i bhfad níos tábhtachtaí anois i gcomhthéacs an Bhreatimeacht.

This debate gives me an opportunity to outline some of the measures that the Government has taken and is taking to support the supply of foreign language teachers, which is a really critical issue, as the Senator rightly identified, and to provide an update on the implementation of the language strategy.

In recent years everyone in the education sector has reported difficulties being experienced by some schools in recruiting post-primary teachers in certain subject areas, including teachers of foreign languages. The Senator might be aware that I wrote a policy document on this very issue on behalf of our party a number of years ago. I am glad that he shares my own concerns about this issue.

As far as I know, the second language that was spoken on the first day of the Dáil was not English but French, when George Gavan Duffy read out the Declaration of Independence. English was spoken after that.

In response to these issues, there was, as the Senator has mentioned, a teacher supply action plan published by the Department that contained a range of actions to address teacher supply and which focused on four policy areas, including higher education. A number of those measures were aimed at supporting the supply of teachers of foreign languages.

As the Senator will undoubtedly know, the Higher Education Authority, HEA, engaged with the higher education institutions to encourage the development of undergraduate initial teacher training programmes in targeted subjects, including foreign languages. This has resulted in new programmes, but obviously it takes time to feed into the system. Nonetheless, it is important to get the foundations right. Since 2019, students can select an undergraduate programme to become a foreign language teacher. This reduces costs they would incur by going on to do a masters in education. These programmes are offered in DCU, UCC, with combinations including Irish, and Limerick, where two foreign languages can be taken on the programme. There were 100 places available on these programmes in 2020, which represents significant additional capacity for foreign language teacher education in the system over the past two years.

It is worth noting that the number of students due to graduate in foreign languages in 2020 from what I referred to as the traditional professional masters in education has also significantly increased. Based on information from our higher education institutions, the graduates on these programmes have increased the potential teacher registrations of foreign languages by more than 130 this year compared with 70 last year. That is starting to make a bit of progress. Obviously we have to make sure that all of these people join and stay in our education system when they get the qualifications.

In addition, the Higher Education Authority issued a call for proposals to upskill existing teachers to meet the Teaching Council's subject criteria in targeted subjects, including Spanish, as mentioned by the Senator. The programmes are two years in duration, open to already registered post-primary teachers, and they will not have to pay fees. It is intended that the details of these programmes will be announced in the coming weeks, and I am delighted that this is happening.

With regard to Languages Connect, which is Ireland's strategy for foreign languages in education and which was published in November 2018, I am pleased to say that significant work has taken place at increasing and diversifying the range of foreign languages taught. A key element of this work has been the development of four new leaving certificate curricular language specifications, which have been rolled out in 15 schools in September of this year, including Mandarin, Chinese, Lithuanian, Polish and Portuguese.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, has also published the national primary curriculum framework for public consultation, which recommends the reintroduction of foreign languages in senior classes at primary level. That issue is a particular personal priority for the Taoiseach. I look forward to seeing that rolled out and giving our kids the skills that, as the Senator rightly points out, they need. It is not just a question of wanting it at this stage.