Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 260: To ask the Minister for Education and Science her views on Chinese as a junior and leaving certificate subject; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3912/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I am aware of the rising number of foreign national students in our school system, and also that there are over one hundred languages, other than Irish or English, spoken in Ireland. The facilities we currently provide for our newcomer students in the examination system are expanding each year and are kept under regular review by my Department. In addition, the number of language support teachers has increased dramatically in recent years.

Apart from the eleven curricular languages studied and examined in the Leaving Certificate examination, the State Examinations Commission provides examinations in a range of non-curricular languages. These are languages which do not appear as part of the normal school curriculum but which students may opt to be examined in under certain conditions, chief among which are the requirements that:

the candidates for these examinations be from a member state of the EU;

they speak the language in which they opt to be examined as a mother tongue;

they are following a programme of study leading to the Leaving Certificate; and

they are taking the Leaving Certificate examination in English.

In 2007 there were candidates in fifteen such languages, facilitating EU students who might be described as 'non-anglophone' in sitting an examination in their own language. This number has increased from nine in 2005.

My Department has no plans to extend further the number of languages available as part of the curriculum in first and second level schools at this time.