Spat Over Pobalscoil Corca Duibhne

Sponge Bob

I had heard from a journalist who is au fait with this story that the case was far from resolved .

It erupted with a vengeance today

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1015/andaingean.html

100 students boycott An Daingean school

Monday, 15 October 2007 17:47 Over 100 students from the new secondary school in An Daingean, Co Kerry, refused to go into their classrooms today.
The students remained outside Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne throughout the day in protest at the school's all-Irish policy.
The students claim that their education is suffering because some of them are not fully competent in the Irish language.
The principal of the school, Padraig Firtéar, said today that he was very disappointed with the students' action and that only a few had approached him on the issue in advance.
The controversial policy has been the subject of several heated public meetings in the town.
Attempts are being made to resolve the matter, but meanwhile the students say that they will continue their protest tomorrow.

The students are quite correct in their stance . The problem is the bit that has been left out of that sentence

"some of them are not fully competent in the Irish language...SB insert..despite having attended Gaeltacht schools all their lives

But according to the Dept of Education they did attend Gaeltacht schools all their lives and the Department can prove that .

The teachers in those schools claimed a special allowance , currently €3000 a year, for the onerous task of teaching in a gaeltacht school through Irish.

It appears that as the Dept does not want to review what went on in primary and secondary schools in certain ' Gaeltachts ' for years....ie systemic teaching only through english ....they refuse to go there.

They do not want awkward questions about what was seen by their own 'inspectors' on the ground for example ....or for how long.

The Unions whose members knowingly made false pay claims , in some cases for decades, are not going there either.

The parents have apparently been advised to get the Government Auditor on the case and to audit these schools to find out whether the state money was disbursed on false pretences ...and most importantly to PROVE that their children were always taught through English and are therefore entitled to continue to do so.

They are currently preparing a collective appeal to the Comptroller and Auditor General to do just this

That will be fun

The role of the Office is to

• audit and report on the accounts of public bodies
• establish that transactions of public bodies are in accordance with the legal authoritiesgoverning them and that funds are applied for the purposes intended
• provide assurance on the system of internal financial control put in place by each body
• examine whether each body administers its resources economically and efficiently and has mechanisms in place to evaluate the effectiveness of operations
• authorise the release of funds from the Exchequer for purposes permitted by law

Its a supreme irony that a bunch of accountants in Dublin are the only ones who can and will prove that the parents and the striking children are correct. The department is sticking to its guns, for now.

mike65

Surprised this is'nt in After Hours! It would be a busy thread I suspect.

I was listening to the articulate pupils on the radio this morning and could'nt find any flaw in thier position. How can one learn fully if not able to speaka da lingo in the first place?

The point raised about failure to teach through Irish looks like a barrel of worms alright, in a sense its should'nt surprise, after all how many citizens are genuinely au fait with the langauge, if the teaching through Irish was true and successful then numbers would be higher than I suspect they are.

As for the money, I get the impression that there are grants for all sorts of things if you just happen to live/work in a Gaeltacht area.

Mike.

Trotter

Hmmmm! My memories of the Gaeltacht are of the locals often speaking English in the shops until they saw a visitor from one of the Gaelscoils arriving and they'd switch to Irish


Moved to AH!

FlutterinBantam

Lets see now lets, see now.

I always like the challenge of breaking down a seemingly complex problem into a sentence or two.
lets see how i get on with this one.

Ok school in the gaeltacht and pupils want to be taught through English even though this could fcuk up all the attached grants the taxpayers have been showering on the area for yonks,and also screw the geezers who have been milking the system and paying lip service to the "teanga" but trousering all the benefits attached to its use"

How far off the mark am I on that one Sir???

mikemac

How do you live in the Gaelteacht and attend a Gaelscoil and still manage to have a poor level of Irish?

And how have the students a valid point? That's a bit like me attending a school in France and then striking as they won't teach me in English. Surely they know how a Gaelscoil operates.

And what about the students who have fluent Irish and are enthuastic about the teanga? Does majority rule and some poor students lose out on Irish despite going to a Gaelscoil.

Ok so, let them have their way.
Strip the school off it's Gaelscoil status and stop paying the teachers extra grants.

seamus

micmclo wrote: »

How do you live in the Gaelteacht and attend a Gaelscoil and still manage to have a poor level of Irish?

And how have the students a valid point? That's a bit like me attending a school in France and then striking as they won't teach me in English. Surely they know how a Gaelscoil operates.

And what about the students who have fluent Irish and are enthuastic about the teanga? Does majority rule and some poor students lose out on Irish despite going to a Gaelscoil.

Ok so, let them have their way.
Strip the school off it's Gaelscoil status and stop paying the teachers extra grants.

One problem here is that an English-speaking school was shut down and the only other option was this Gael scoil. An English woman was on Newstalk last week saying that her Irish-exempt daughter was in the English school since they moved here. Then they closed it and she has to attend a Gael scoil despite having little if no Irish. She won "Student of the year" in her last year in the English school and is now struggling in all her subjects. The closest English speaking school is 40-odd miles away.

The Dept. of Education shut down the English speaking school and then failed to provide provision for those students who didn't have sufficient Irish to be schooled in the Gael Scoil.

You can go on about, "It's in the Gaeltacht", but the English speaking school was there, so the expectation/requirement was created. You can't just remove that.

mikemac

Fair point Seamus and I actually heard some of that interview on the radio but didn't learn the location.

But still I find it harsh that the existing students of the Gaelscoil could have that status taken away as the new students cannot manage.
How many threads do we see about immigrants to Ireland need to learn English and integrate. Same principle here as the students especially as they are in the Gaelteacht region.

I'm guessing most pupils that were in the English speaking school are Irish. Therefore they have studied Irish for years and should have a good competancy. Sink or swim time I'm afraid.

The English girl is a different case and yes it will be tough for her.
At the same time, are you saying the Gaelscoil should be shut and reopened as a ordinary school just to suit her? No way imo.

randylonghorn

micmclo wrote: »

How do you live in the Gaelteacht and attend a Gaelscoil and still manage to have a poor level of Irish?

1. because not every pupil going to Dingle for secondary school live in the Gaeltacht, in a practical sense anyway, whatever the arbitrary lines on a map might say.

2. for that matter, with people moving back into the area over the last few years, and indeed families from the UK / Germany / Holland etc. who have moved to the area, many of the teenagers who now do live within the practical Gaeltacht boundary did not necessarily attend Gaelscoileanna as primary pupils.

micmclo wrote: »

And how have the students a valid point? That's a bit like me attending a school in France and then striking as they won't teach me in English. Surely they know how a Gaelscoil operates.

This is the new Community School made up of an amalgamation of the previous second-level schools in the town. To the best of my knowledge, it is not a case of these pupils having opted for a Gaelscoil and then objecting to being taught through Irish ... this is the only choice available.

EDIT: got delayed and Séamus got in first with similar points. Micmclo, the major part of the true Gaeltacht is to the west of Dingle town. Many families within the ambit of this school have the same level of Irish as if they lived in Meath, Kilkenny or Laois.

This kind of forcing is what has traditionally engendered so much hatred of the Irish language among so many school-leavers; it is counter-productive.

seamus

micmclo wrote: »

But still I find it harsh that the existing students of the Gaelscoil could have that status taken away as the new students cannot manage.
How many threads do we see about immigrants to Ireland need to learn English and integrate. Same principle here as the students especially as they are in the Gaelteacht region.

It's not exactly the same though. You're not asking a school in a foreign country to teach a foreign language. You're asking a school to provide facilities for a subset of students who will only be there for a couple of years - facilities which are not extraordinary considering that the language primarily spoken in this country is English. The number of Irish-only speakers in this country is negligble. Fact is, anyone who speaks Irish can speak English too, so they're not asking for anything exceptional. English is not a foreign language, even in the Gaeltacht.

I wouldn't advocate changing the school to English, just providing for the students who don't have enough Irish to function. They only have to maintain this for four or five years - new students coming in should be taught solely through Irish.

I'm guessing most pupils that were in the English speaking school are Irish. Therefore they have studied Irish for years and should have a good competancy. Sink or swim time I'm afraid.

I don't accept that. If the students haven't been taught properly or otherwise don't have the knowledge, you can't suddenly make it appear in their heads. Imagine giving someone a job as an accountant even if you knew they failed foundation maths? Would you expect them to "pick it up", or would you expect them to fail? And whose fault would it be when they failed?

Unshelved

Some pupils are exempt from Irish. If you haven't been taught Irish by the time you're - I think - twelve, because you've lived in another country, you're exempt from learning Irish. These pupils attended a school in Dingle which taught through English. This school has been amalgamated into the new Community School where it has been decided to teach everything through Irish.

It's very unfair on the pupils from the school where everything has up until now been taught through English, to switch to learning in another language. Especially if a child is going into fifth year and is entering the Leaving Cert cycle.

There is a case to be answered. But unfortunately, when it comes to the Irish language, logic gets thrown out the window.

cance

having started in an irish secondary school with pigeon irish and finished with honours. i'd have to say pull up your socks you little shítes and get on with it.

but thats just me,

seamus

cance wrote: »

having started in an irish secondary school with pigeon irish and finished with honours. i'd have to say pull up your socks you little shítes and get on with it.

but thats just me,

You're right you know. And just to illustrate the point, I've signed you up to sit seven subjects in the Leaving Cert in June '09. All of the classes are in Mandarin.

Best of luck

cance

seamus wrote: »

You're right you know. And just to illustrate the point, I've signed you up to sit seven subjects in the Leaving Cert in June '09. All of the classes are in Mandarin.

Best of luck

theres a huge difference between mandarin and irish, so theres no comparison.

this country is just too fúcking liberal these days, who gave teenagers voices? and who started listening?

seamus

cance wrote: »

theres a huge difference between mandarin and irish, so theres no comparison.

Grand then. Pick any european language you're not familiar with. Portugeuse?

mike65

Irish is more incompreshensible than Manderin! Irish is one of the most difficult languages to learn unless you've been 'born' to it as it has little or nothing in common with the Greco-Roman and subsequent Germanic families.

Mike.

TheDriver

I like the reasoning that its your right to eduaction in English etc. I totally agree, exact same as pupils have a right to:
equality especially having some kids in class of 30 and others in classes of 3.
comfort: I just love the mould running down the walls and those primary schools with the outside toilets still
lots and lots more. Its our eduaction system and needs lots more money and lots of rights but unfortunately theres lots and lots more kids being hard done by on other things too.

randylonghorn

I doubt if anyone will disagree with your basic point, TheDriver.

I doubt, however, that you are arguing that it is ok for these kids to be penalised by a policy born of a small but vocal number of overly-fanatical Gaelgeoiri, simply because other kids are being penalised in other ways for very different reasons?

That would be a bit like arguing that because some people in the world do not have enough to eat, we should actively seek to ensure that nobody in the world has enough to eat. I'm sure you would agree that the more logical policy is to seek to ensure that everybody has enough to eat, regardless of what different reasons there may be underlying their hunger.

syklops

cance wrote: »

having started in an irish secondary school with pigeon irish and finished with honours. i'd have to say pull up your socks you little shítes and get on with it.

but thats just me,

Thats very helpful that is. Thanks for that. So they neglect their english and concentrate on Irish, and end up passing. And then they go onto college, where they discover they do not know the english words for half their Math/Science classes, and then have to pull their socks even tighter?


In case you have not noticed I am 100% against the compulsory teaching of irish in school, 100% against the use of it in the Defence Forces, and other government areas. I do not want to the ban the language, but forcing the language on everyone puts one more nail in its coffin.

Maybe polish should be compulsary in school. Because lets face it, there are about 1000's more people in Ireland who are fluent in that, than in Irish.

JC 2K3

syklops wrote: »

Thats very helpful that is. Thanks for that. So they neglect their english and concentrate on Irish, and end up passing. And then they go onto college, where they discover they do not know the english words for half their Math/Science classes, and then have to pull their socks even tighter?

Yeah because when you learn maths/science subjects through Irish in Secondary school you're not taught the English words also. And there are no English classes in Gaelscoileanna. :rolleyes:

Big Ears

cance wrote: »

having started in an irish secondary school with pigeon irish and finished with honours. i'd have to say pull up your socks you little shítes and get on with it.

but thats just me,

and those who have just gone into 6th year ? , surely you hardly expect them to be successful if they are not used to being thought in Irish .

mise_me_fein

Quote from Rambo III "Fcuk em"

For the good of the country we need to start teaching in Irish again. I seen some Russian girl giving out about this story in the paper saying she had to travel 30 miles to go to an English speaking school.....Last I heard Russia was not in the EU. Irish and English have the same rights in this country.

WTF was she complaining about. Maybe the family should fcuk back to Russia and see how they like it there.

Yeah this country is too liberal.

knightmare

mise_me_fein wrote: »

Quote from Rambo III "Fcuk em"

For the good of the country we need to start teaching in Irish again. I seen some Russian girl giving out about this story in the paper saying she had to travel 30 miles to go to an English speaking school.....Last I heard Russia was not in the EU. Irish and English have the same rights in this country.

WTF was she complaining about. Maybe the family should fcuk back to Russia and see how they like it there.

Yeah this country is too liberal.

I agree 100%. Whole country is gone too bloody PC, bending over backwards to accomodate newcomers. Why da Feck don't these people p*ss off into tralee or killarney if they need english so badly. Polish only schools opening in waterford, cork and limerick yet none of the irish are giving out about it... just get on with it & stop your whinging

seamus

knightmare wrote: »

I agree 100%. Whole country is gone too bloody PC, bending over backwards to accomodate newcomers. Why da Feck don't these people p*ss off into tralee or killarney if they need english so badly. Polish only schools opening in waterford, cork and limerick yet none of the irish are giving out about it... just get on with it & stop your whinging

Have you even read the thread? Nobody is suggesting that we supply english schools in the Gaeltacht. Just accomodate that handful of students who have been forced out of their english-speaking school. Nothing more.

Or is this just some xenophobic, "Out with the forigners" crap?

knightmare

seamus wrote: »

Have you even read the thread? Nobody is suggesting that we supply english schools in the Gaeltacht. Just accomodate that handful of students who have been forced out of their english-speaking school. Nothing more.

Or is this just some xenophobic, "Out with the forigners" crap?

Pity about them! Just accomodate a handful of students--give me a break thats how it always starts.
Why should the policy of the school change to accomodate a small few? Stand firm I say.....fck em

seamus

knightmare wrote: »

Pity about them! Just accomodate a handful of students--give me a break thats how it always starts.
Why should the policy of the school change to accomodate a small few? Stand firm I say.....fck em

Because the school policy effectively changed to disadvantage these students in the first place. Again, do you even understand what this is about or are you just foaming at the mouth for the sake of it. These are mostly Irish kids, who have been taught in English all their lives, now being forced to learn in Irish.

knightmare

seamus wrote: »

Because the school policy effectively changed to disadvantage these students in the first place. Again, do you even understand what this is about or are you just foaming at the mouth for the sake of it. These are mostly Irish kids, who have been taught in English all their lives, now being forced to learn in Irish.

Irish Kids or not it is a gaelscoil, can you understand that much a ..gaelscoil. So either adapt or p*ss off. A handful with loud voices expecting the fundamental principles of a school to change just because they are inconvenienced.....Again pity about em.

bohsman

Unshelved wrote: »

Some pupils are exempt from Irish. If you haven't been taught Irish by the time you're - I think - twelve, because you've lived in another country, you're exempt from learning Irish. These pupils attended a school in Dingle which taught through English. This school has been amalgamated into the new Community School where it has been decided to teach everything through Irish.

I was born in Sweden but moved to Ireland when I was 4, did all my schooling in Ireland, found out in 6th year that I didnt need to pass Irish to get my LC.

seamus

knightmare wrote: »

Irish Kids or not it is a gaelscoil, can you understand that much a ..gaelscoil. So either adapt or p*ss off. A handful with loud voices expecting the fundamental principles of a school to change just because they are inconvenienced.....Again pity about em.

No, they expect to be accomodated by the Government for a short period of time until they finish their schooling, they're not asking the Gaelscoil to change. It's not just a matter of being "inconvenienced". They don't speak the language, making it effectively impossible for them to be taught. The local government has deprived these kids of their right to an education over some bull**** politics about a floundering unused language. There is absolutely no harm in providing schooling in English for these kids until they finish. Then the local politicians can go back to their insular ways.

"Adapt or piss off"? Grand so, I've signed you up for the leaving cert in 09 too. In Mandarin. I say the best strategy will be to become fluent in Mandarin in a year and then covers two years' worth of material in one year. You can adapt to that right? Easy.

knightmare

seamus wrote: »

No, they expect to be accomodated by the Government for a short period of time until they finish their schooling, they're not asking the Gaelscoil to change. It's not just a matter of being "inconvenienced". They don't speak the language, making it effectively impossible for them to be taught. The local government has deprived these kids of their right to an education over some bull**** politics about a floundering unused language. There is absolutely no harm in providing schooling in English for these kids until they finish. Then the local politicians can go back to their insular ways.

"Adapt or piss off"? Grand so, I've signed you up for the leaving cert in 09 too. In Mandarin. I say the best strategy will be to become fluent in Mandarin in a year and then covers two years' worth of material in one year. You can adapt to that right? Easy.

Mandarin--If I have too yes. Sink or swim buddy, sink or swim!

seamus

Best of luck so.

Your student number is 09256341. Let us know how you get on.

knightmare

seamus wrote: »

Best of luck so.

Your student number is 09256341. Let us know how you get on.

Grand Job so, any tips for the Oral?