Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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170. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of non-Gaelscoileanna schools that offer access to Irish language partial immersion programmes, where 50% of subjects are taught through the Irish language; and if his Department offers any support or funding to schools to increase access to such programmes. [23210/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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There are 3262 primary schools, including special schools, in the country. Of these 2847 are English medium schools, 248 are Irish medium schools and 29 teach partially through Irish.

At post primary there are 735 schools in total. Of these 665 are English medium schools 48 are Irish medium schools. There are 13 schools where some pupils are taught all subjects through Irish and 9 schools where some pupils are taught some subject through Irish.

The Department is not is a position to give the precise percentage of time devoted to teaching through Irish.

A new more mainstreamed approach, to that set out in the 20 Year Strategy on the Irish language, is being adopted by the Department in relation to language teaching and the embedding of language skills in our primary schools. In fact, a new language curriculum has been prepared by the NCCA for junior infants to second classes. It includes both English and Irish. It will be introduced to these primary pupils from next September. There is a curriculum prepared for English medium schools where English is the main language of instruction and Irish is the second language. There is also a curriculum for Irish medium schools where Irish is the main language of instruction and English is the second language.

The role of immersion education is being considered in the context of the new Policy on Gaeltacht Education that is currently being finalised.

Guidance on the use of CLIL (content and language integrated learning) is included in the materials developed by the NCCA to support the implementation of the new Primary language curriculum for infants to second classes. This will be introduced to primary schools from September 2016.

A comprehensive continuing professional development programme is in place to support the implementation of the new primary language curriculum. Teachers are, as part of this professional development, receiving advice on the use of different methodologies to teach Irish and to use Irish as the medium of instruction, whether they are in English medium or Irish medium schools.