Barry Ward (Fine Gael)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I raise the issue of the leaving certificate Chinese Mandarin course, which is in its infancy and being put together by the Department of Education. This may be a niche issue because we do not have huge take-up on it yet but there is an opportunity for Irish schoolchildren to get involved in and study Mandarin.

An issue of controversy arises regarding the use of the characters or script used for learning Mandarin. Mandarin is the official language in China but is one dialect of thousands existing across that country, many of which are mutually unintelligible and as different as German and Spanish. It is understandable that the Chinese have chosen to identify one dialect, namely, the Han dialect of Mandarin, to be the lingua francaand it allows them all to communicate. When the simplified characters were brought in in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a solid rationale for that. They were brought in by the People's Republic of China and the communist party primarily to address literacy issues after the creation of the state in 1949. One in five people could read or write in China at that time. For understandable reasons, the Chinese Government decided to put in place an easier script for them to use. Traditional Chinese script, which has been in use for thousands of years, has thousands of characters and is complex. The idea of simplified characters existed long before the communist party put it into practise in 1949 and after. However, there are still large communities in places like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao who continue to use the traditional characters. Those characters bring with them a huge breadth of cultural and historical significance that is lost with the simplified characters. I do not criticise the use of simplified characters. They were effective in bringing an enormous population into the bounds of literacy.

The difficulty I have is that the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, under the aegis of the Department of Education, has made the decision that the leaving certificate course here will only deal with the simplified characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, thereby excluding those who come from areas where traditional characters are used. That is at variance with many other English-language jurisdictions around the world, like the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. They have offered students the choice between the two different scripts. They can do the exams, coarse and curriculum in either the simplified characters or the traditional ones used in certain areas. I recognise the Minister said on 8 July this was designed for ab initio learners, rather than immigrant or migrant communities. However, many thousands or even tens of thousands of people in this country come from Hong Kong, Taiwan or a community where the traditional characters are used.By putting this in place, we know they will still study leaving certificate Mandarin but we are denying them the opportunity to learn that aspect of the script and the culture that is attached to Mandarin Chinese. The other aspect is that if they only learn the simplified characters, it denies them access to another corpus of literature and material, and all that comes with that, which they might otherwise have.

The issue I am raising today is not to say we should not have simplified characters or that they are in any way wrong; it is to say that we should be giving students the choice. There is a real gap in the curriculum in that we are saying they must deal with one type of script when there are two available and two in use all over the world, sometimes necessarily, for example, in the United States, to communicate to both communities who use them. I hope the Minister of State can take that on board.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Ward for raising this issue. I want to give the apologies of the Minister for Education, who cannot be present today.

Languages Connect - Ireland's Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017-2026 aims to increase and diversify the range of languages taught and learned in line with the European framework of key competences for lifelong learning of 2007, which recognises the ability to communicate in a foreign language as one of the key competences needed for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment. Enterprise Ireland had identified eight languages as important for Ireland's future skills needs: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Japanese. In the words of Enterprise Ireland:

A workforce possessed of significant foreign language capabilities will make Ireland a more attractive destination for investment, and provide the skills required by our indigenous companies to enable them to expand into overseas markets.

Languages Connect provided for the development of a "Leaving Certificate specification in Mandarin Chinese for non-native speakers (L3) as a follow on from the Junior Cycle short course in Chinese Language and Culture" and for specifications in "Portuguese, Polish and Lithuanian aimed at mother tongue speakers (L1) to replace existing non-curricular provision". There was very significant consultation in the lead-up to the development of this strategy. Subject specifications, including for leaving certificate Mandarin Chinese, are developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. The development process is a thorough one, involving extensive consultation, following which the subject specification is approved through the representative structures of the NCCA and subsequently approved by the Department. The State Examinations Commission then implements examinations in line with the subject specification and the overall policy framework.

The State Examinations Commission is required to conduct its examinations in a manner that is faithful to the approved subject specification developed by the NCCA and in line with assessment policy as set out by the Department. The assessment of the leaving certificate Mandarin Chinese programme is based on the specification and provides that candidates must respond to questions on the examination paper using simplified characters in line with the specification. Heritage speakers are also welcome to study the course and sit the exam, but it has been designed for students with no prior knowledge of Mandarin. By contrast, the Portuguese specification is intended for learners of all language backgrounds, including heritage learners. While Mandarin Chinese is pitched at pre-A1 or A1 level, Portuguese is pitched at A2 or B1 level.

The new language specifications broadly align with the common European framework of reference for languages, CEFR. Within CEFR, there is an EU project, European benchmarking Chinese language, to incorporate the Chinese language into the CEFR framework. If the design of the leaving certificate Mandarin Chinese specification had been for native speakers and-or encompassed both sets of characters, the differences in the two forms of characters would also have had implications for vocabulary, syntax and language use. This would present great challenges across teaching, learning and assessment, which would also have impacts on higher education language programmes and initial teacher education. The Department will consider the potential to develop a specification for leaving certificate Mandarin Chinese for native speakers, L1.

Barry Ward (Fine Gael)
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Much of that is information the Minister, Deputy Foley, has put into the public domain before. One change is that she had said previously that this might have implications for vocabulary, syntax, language use and, potentially, cultural use. She seems to have dropped the cultural aspect whereas I would see this as being exactly the crux of the issue. There is a significant difference in the experience of language learners depending on whether they are using simplified or traditional characters. My concern is that, even with new learners, we are cutting them off from a whole corpus of literature from places like Taiwan and Hong Kong, and many members of the immigrant community here come from those countries.

The real danger is that we are exposing ourselves to an accusation that we are selling out this curriculum to a foreign power - that being Beijing and China - and that we are only adopting theirs because, in that way, students of Mandarin only have access to literature and, indeed, propaganda that comes from the Chinese Communist Party and the centralised government in Beijing. That is an accusation that will be made and, I think, already has been made against this. That is the real danger. We can counter that by broadening the curriculum and allowing the facility for more people to learn the traditional script as well.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I again thank Senator Ward for his remarks and for the very strong case which he has put forward, backed up by evidence. I will revert to the Minister, Deputy Foley, with the content of the Senator's response. I will set out clearly the evidence he has put on the table here today in terms of the benefits to our State that this can potentially have, but also the accusations that the State could potentially be open to unintended consequences, given the direction the Department is currently going in. I will raise that with the Minister, Deputy Foley, and ask her to revert directly to the Senator.