The Status Of Irish.

deise go deo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Those are restrictions imposed by the school due to lack of resources, they aren't a part of the course and each school offers a different combination of choosable* subjects.

*Is choosable even a word?

Anyway I was in the same boat as you with woodwork or metalwork though I could have choosen home ec either. But as you and I know no self-respecting 12 year old boy would ever choose it.

In my school Boys could do Metal or wood work and girls had to do Home Ec but cross over was not allowed.(We had an old Principle)
But I think you will find that compulsion is the norm to JC not the exception and there is no reason to make Irish an Exception to JC.

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

But I think you will find that compulsion is the norm to JC not the exception and there is no reason to make Irish an Exception to JC.

True, but only if you are Not Open To Change.

deise go deo

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

True, but only if you are Not Open To Change.

Whats that supposed to mean? Change for the sake of change isent a good thing.
Give me a good reason why it should change.

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

Whats that supposed to mean? Change for the sake of change isent a good thing.
Give me a good reason why it should change.

Because it's a senseless waste of money forcing people to speak language which is not their native language and which they will never use. Beacause there is no economic advantage to teaching English speakers to speak Irish. We have 80 years of experience of this, now it's time to change.

Let's spend the money on more worthwhile things.

Be part of the solution, not the problem, 'step outside of the box'.

DJP

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

We have 80 years of experience of this, now it's time to change.

Let's spend the money on more worthwhile things.

Be part of the solution, not the problem, 'step outside of the box'.

OK chief, what do you plan to do?

cyclopath2001

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

OK chief, what do you plan to do?

Make Irish optional and let each school decide which languages to offer depending on local demand.

Students could be required to have one of either Irish or English plus one of a number of optional languages. For English speakers, Irish could be an optional second language, or for example, a pupil could choose German instead. The implications of language choice for a student's future career path would be carefully explained.

This approach puts economic productivity skills ahead of romantic ideas such as making Irish the common language again.

deise go deo

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Because it's a senseless waste of money forcing people to speak language which is not their native language and which they will never use. Beacause there is no economic advantage to teaching English speakers to speak Irish. We have 80 years of experience of this, now it's time to change.

Several false points here,
Firstly, Its not forcing when there is widespread support for it

Secondly, you claim that people will never use Irish, That is a lie. Some people may chose not to use it, but you can not say that they will not use it, nor dose it make sense to assume that people who know Irish will in general chose not to use it.(Unless you can see the future that is)
If people can speak Irish then evidence suggests they will.

Let's spend the money on more worthwhile things.

It seams that the Irish people have already decided that the Irish language is Worthwhile, How else would you explain their constant support for it? Who are you to decide what is and isent worthwhile on their behalf?

Be part of the solution, not the problem, 'step outside of the box'.

:rolleyes:
Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam.
(I can spout useless rhetoric too)

MysticalRain

Claiming that the Irish people "support" the language doesn't necessarily mean everybody wants to make it compulsory in school.

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

It seams that the Irish people have already decided that the Irish language is Worthwhile, How else would you explain their constant support for it? Who are you to decide what is and isent worthwhile on their behalf?

Of course it has a worth, but this should be ranked relative to all the other things valued by The People.

That's what's wrong with the self-serving surveys commissioned every time Irish Language interests want to generate statistics justifying their demands for more funding. People are never asked to rank spending on Irish relative to other needs, such as employment skills, jobs, health care and social services.

Let's ask questions like these - Which is more important?

1: Solving unemployment.

2: Providing A&E services in rural communities.

3: Timely health services for those in need.

4: Security for the vulnerable.

5: Skilling children so that can have productive careers.

6: Reverting to Irish as a common language.

deise go deo

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Of course it has a worth, but this should be ranked relative to all the other things valued by The People.

That's what's wrong with the self-serving surveys commissioned every time Irish Language interests want to generate statistics justifying their demands for more funding. People are never asked to rank spending on Irish relative to other needs, such as employment skills, jobs, health care and social services.

Let's ask questions like these - Which is more important?

1: Solving unemployment.

2: Providing A&E services in rural communities.

3: Timely health services for those in need.

4: Security for the vulnerable.

5: Skilling children so that can have productive careers.

6: Reverting to Irish as a common language.

So what you are suggesting is that it is important, but other things are more important(Health Service etc) and as such other things deserve to be supported more right?

However as it is now, other things are supported more than Irish, Including most of what you have mentioned, so whats the problem?

DJP

I think this thread will never end.

Deise go deo, do you accept that you should have said in your OP that you asked the question in relation to the Leaving Cert?

deise go deo

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

I think this thread will never end.

Deise go deo, do you accept that you should have said in your OP that you asked the question in relation to the Leaving Cert?

Given that the FG policy I referenced in the OP was on making it optional for the LC I assumed that much was obvious, and the majority of the thread has been on the LC, Now Cyclopath thinks making it Optional for the JC is a good Idea(for some reason) So we seam to be discussing that.

Iwasfrozen

deise go deo wrote: »

Given that the FG policy I referenced in the OP was on making it optional for the LC I assumed that much was obvious, and the majority of the thread has been on the LC, Now Cyclopath thinks making it Optional for the JC is a good Idea(for some reason) So we seam to be discussing that.

Speaking of FG, have they made their position clear on this yet?

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

However as it is now, other things are supported more than Irish, Including most of what you have mentioned, so whats the problem?

With the current crisis in the economy, resources allocated to one activity may have to be diverted to another one which has a higher priority. For example, if we made savings by allowing people to choose whether or not to learn Irish, could the money saved be used for a more socially profitable outcome than the current outcome?

It's questions like these that are never thought of by CnAG when they concoct their surveys.

deise go deo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Speaking of FG, have they made their position clear on this yet?

Not that ive seen, Brian Hayse has said that he favors it being Optional, But at the same time FG have signed up to the 20 year plan which includes keeping Irish Compulsory as a recommendation, so its not entirely clear which way they will go.

deise go deo

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

With the current crisis in the economy, resources allocated to one activity may have to be diverted to another one which has a higher priority. For example, if we made savings by allowing people to choose whether or not to learn Irish, could the money saved be used for a more socially profitable outcome than the current outcome?

It's questions like these that are never thought of by CnAG when they concoct their surveys.

CnaG's surveys? No, Government surveys. As can be seen by the list of sponsors on the front page of them.

Where exactly do you think the money will be saved?
The only saving I can see would be less teachers being paid.
FG's former policy made clear that even if its optional, every school will still be required to offer it as a subject, meaning that all school's will still have to have teachers for it, other than teachers, where is the saving to be made?

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

CnaG's surveys? No, Government surveys. As can be seen by the list of sponsors on the front page of them.

Only one of the surveys quoted here (the 1999 radio one) was sponsored by a government body. And it had both CnaG and another Irish language Quango on the committee.

deise go deo wrote: »

Where exactly do you think the money will be saved?
The only saving I can see would be less teachers being paid.

Money is wasted by teaching pupils a langauge that don't want to speak or one which is of no practical use to them in securing jobs. So, as the teachers have all of the benefits of Bilingualism, they could cross-train to more useful languages. Alternatively, we could just remove Irish from the curriculum. Anyone who, like you, is Open To Irish will, driven by Commitment To The Language, learn it outside of school hours. Problem solved. Money saved.

deise go deo wrote: »

FG's former policy made clear that even if its optional, every school will still be required to offer it as a subject, meaning that all school's will still have to have teachers for it, other than teachers, where is the saving to be made?

You're just thinking 'inside of the box', throwing up obstacles, obsressed with 'Making Irish our Common Language' and not the bigger picture....what is best for the children and how to best use scarce financial resources.

Think of the nation, not just the langauge.

deise go deo

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Only one of the surveys quoted here (the 1999 radio one) was sponsored by a government body. And it had both CnaG and another Irish language Quango on the committee.

Wrong, several other surveys that have been mentioned here have been sponsored by government.

Money is wasted by teaching pupils a langauge that don't want to speak or one which is of no practical use to them in securing jobs. So, as the teachers have all of the benefits of Bilingualism, they could cross-train to more useful languages. Alternatively, we could just remove Irish from the curriculum. Anyone who, like you, is Open To Irish will, driven by Commitment To The Language, learn it outside of school hours. Problem solved. Money saved.

You're just thinking 'inside of the box', throwing up obstacles, obsressed with 'Making Irish our Common Language' and not the bigger picture....what is best for the children and how to best use scarce financial resources.

Think of the nation, not just the langauge.

I asked where the money would be saved, How much, and how, I am not looking for waffle and rhetoric, I want to know where you think money will be saved by making it optional.

So how about you think outside your own little box, and answer the question that is put to you.

Lord TSC

It strikes me that realistically, there's not much money that will be saved by making Irish optional. It strikes me all that would happen is each school might lose one or two teachers of Irish and possibly have to hire one more foregin language teacher. In the grander economic scale of things, the savings would be miniscule.

This even struck me with the whole Irish announcement the government made (mentioned a few pages back); iirc now, the "initiative" was only going to be taking 1.5 million (am I right with those figures?). Considering we need to save billions, that is a relativly minor sum of money to ensure that Irish survives. Not that I agree it should be compulsory, mind. Just that Deise has a point in that little money would be saved.....

cyclopath2001

deise go deo wrote: »

Wrong, several other surveys that have been mentioned here have been sponsored by government.
I asked where the money would be saved, How much, and how, I am not looking for waffle and rhetoric, I want to know where you think money will be saved by making it optional.

So how about you think outside your own little box, and answer the question that is put to you.

Thinking outside box of what has been imposed for 80 years, the greatest saving can be made by removing Irish from the curriculum and making it completely voluntary. Repealing the OLA would save money as would making TG4 and RnaG self-funding.

This of course would require the Irish Language to be Open to Change and instead of hiding behind Compulsion, Promote the language among Those Who Wish to Speak Irish.

Reducing Irish language teaching hours would be a compromise worth exploring.

cyclopath2001

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

It strikes me that realistically, there's not much money that will be saved by making Irish optional. It strikes me all that would happen is each school might lose one or two teachers of Irish and possibly have to hire one more foregin language teacher. In the grander economic scale of things, the savings would be miniscule.

This even struck me with the whole Irish announcement the government made (mentioned a few pages back); iirc now, the "initiative" was only going to be taking 1.5 million (am I right with those figures?). Considering we need to save billions, that is a relativly minor sum of money to ensure that Irish survives. Not that I agree it should be compulsory, mind. Just that Deise has a point in that little money would be saved.....

There are two ways money can be saved, the first is by spending it on languages that will enhance the employment prospects of students. The second would be by reducing the number of teachers. Time saved by eliminating unnecessary Irish lessons could be used for study periods which require less expensive supervision.

The new plan does not reveal the full cost of the Irish Language Regime. That 1.5 million is just for 'promotional' costs, such as Counselling Prospective Parents on the Benefits of Bilingualism.

How about we cut the 1bn annual cost of compulsory Irish and just give CnaG a grant of, say 20 million?

DJP

FG are still in favour of making Irish optional for the Leaving Cert. They reconfirmed that on the day (later on in the day) when the Strategy was launched.

cyclopath2001,

I suggest you get onto Reform about them having the policy for Irish to be optional throughout school. They may even fund an opinion poll. No national politician is going to agree with you and few people in the general public will also so you are wasting your time here.

cyclopath2001

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

I suggest you get onto Reform about them having the policy for Irish to be optional throughout school. They may even fund an opinion poll. No national politician is going to agree with you and few people in the general public will also so you are wasting your time here.

It's understandable that polticians are not going to stick their neck out on Irish, it would only give their opponents a chance to grab for the sentimental nationalistic higher ground. But Irish society does change, we've removed the Catholic Church from our Constitution and getting rid of the Seanad is being discussed.

What's disturbing is how narrow-focused the Irish language lobby is, demonstrating no concept of the greater national good, totally fixated on making people speak Irish, out of any realistic context or sense of proportion, with a (taxpayer's) 'money-no-object' attitude that is so 2006. Their an 'all-or-nothing' attitude, means it is likely they will end up up with the latter.

DJP

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

It's understandable that polticians are not going to stick their neck out on Irish, it would only give their opponents a chance to grab for the sentimental nationalistic higher ground. But Irish society does change, we've removed the Catholic Church from our Constitution and getting rid of the Seanad is being discussed.

Enda Kenny stuck his neck out initially to call for it to be optional for the Leaving Cert. In reality few think that it should be optional before the Leaving Cert. I suppose few have even thought about it (several wouldn't have before reading this thread with its vague OP question) but I bet most of your potential supporters would be happy with it just being optional for the Leaving Cert. Irish is the only subject made required for the Leaving Cert by the DOE while Irish, English and Maths are made required for the Junior. No politician is going to dilute this.

And I know more politicians then the average person and none of them bar some nutters on the far-left would be in favour of making it optional for the Junior Cert. Most people like Irish.

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

What's disturbing is how narrow-focused the Irish language lobby is, demonstrating no concept of the greater national good, totally fixated on making people speak Irish, out of any realistic context or sense of proportion, with a (taxpayer's) 'money-no-object' attitude that is so 2006. Their an 'all-or-nothing' attitude, means it is likely they will end up up with the latter.

What latter?

cyclopath2001

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

Most people like Irish.

But not enough to be bothered speaking it & less again if they knew the full (hidden) cost.

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

What latter?

The latter is the 'nothing' in 'all or nothing'. My problem with the ILL is that they want to make the whole country speak Irish and don't care about the financial cost or impact on national productivity. We could achieve a worthwhile preservation of quality Irish speaking at much lower cost if we focused resources on the native-speaking areas.

It's a hot potato with politicians, we'll need to wait for it to cool off before some common-sense is injected into the ILL patient.

DJP

And how would you achieve significant savings, whilst remembering that it is official Government policy to promote the Irish language and that we now have a 20 Year Strategy to promote it?

Iwasfrozen

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

And how would you achieve significant savings, whilst remembering that it is official Government policy to promote the Irish language and that we now have a 20 Year Strategy to promote it?

The government won't be in government next summer nevermind in 20 years and it is doubtful that the main opposition parties are interested despite signing up for it.

DJP

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The government won't be in government next summer nevermind in 20 years and it is doubtful that the main opposition parties are interested despite signing up for it.

Are you serious? The next FG/LP Govt. will be more interested and more competent in promoting it. They will be with Enda and Eamon and (especially providing they are gaeilgeoirí) with the next Ministers for the Gaeltacht and Education.

Iwasfrozen

Darren J. Prior wrote: »

Are you serious? The next FG/LP Govt. will be more interested and more competent in promoting it. They will be with Enda and Eamon and (especially providing they are gaeilgeoirí) with the next Ministers for the Gaeltacht and Education.

Are you sure about that? Historically Fine Gael and Labour have not been as active as Fianna Fáil in promoting Irish. Untill about a year ago it has been official Fine Gael policy to introduce optional Irish after the Junior cert and even now we have high ranking Fine Gael politicians like Brian Hayes saying he would like to see it optional.

And let's not forget the Fine Gael gaelteacht spokesman who can't speak Irish. -_-

nice_guy80

Get rid of all current agencies tasked with doing stuff for the Irish language
Udaras na Gaeltachta
Foras na Gaeigle
An Gum
they are all wasting so much of the taxpayers money

form a proper body whose main function is to actually grow the Irish language countrywide and not just preserving tiny communities
this can be done through:

a proper Irish radio station with young presenters
a digital tv station through Irish for kids - just invest in lots of dubbed cartoons and other programmes eg seasame street. funded through the Irish promotion body. no more English ads.
having charity shops through Irish - where the proceeds are pumped back into language promotion locally. look how much money those other 'charity' shops make
an online video site - gaeilgetube.com or something where Irish content only can uploaded - would be great for schools drama groups, music, sports etc
running cafés and restaurants where service is availble through Irish. provide grants to provide language course for staff
using existing organisations to use more Irish and put things on through Irish - eg GAA, other sports.
using Local Radio stations - look at iradio - more Irish heard on that by young people than on RnaG.
develop resources for teaching Irish - do you know the complete lack of decent resources out there for teaching Irish in primary schools??? Make it all ICT, interactive based and downloadable for free. Most schools have smartboards now
The state provides NOTHING to schools to devlop Irish