Compulsory Irish lc

Just saw a poll online asking whether or not to keep Irish as a complusory lc subject.

Wonder what people's thoughts are?
I could be completely stupid in a sense but I would have it complusory to learn but that it wouldn't be a complusory examinable lc subject.

I personally would be in favour of keeping it complusory in the sense to speak it and do away with long essays and just focus on speaking aspect.

Iscreamkone

Irish is required for entry to the NUI universities but the ITs only require English OR Irish. Some other universities require English plus another language eg. Irish OR French.
Thus, Irish is far from compulsory for entry to 3rd level as it is.

I don't think that it's a good idea to force people to learn subjects that they are not suited to. For example, society benefits more if a student swaps his potential O5 in Irish for a H2 in Art, or any other subject. Promote excellence.

Keep Irish to Junior Cert but make it optional afterwards. The NUI entry requirements will mean that plenty of people will still keep it to LC.

Iscreamkone

Another element to the debate is that plenty of affluent parents get little Johnny diagnosed as dyslexic or whatever to avoid doing Irish and getting an exemption from the NUI requirement to have Irish to LC. Poorer families often can not afford this and are thus at a competitive disadvantage in the points race.
As if they weren't far enough behind already, with the amount of money spent on fee paying schools and grinds/grind schools.

c_f_p99

Iscreamkone wrote: »

Another element to the debate is that plenty of affluent parents get little Johnny diagnosed as dyslexic or whatever to avoid doing Irish and getting an exemption from the NUI requirement to have Irish to LC. Poorer families often can not afford this and are thus at a competitive disadvantage in the points race.
As if they weren't far enough behind already, with the amount of money spent on fee paying schools and grinds/grind schools.

This 100%. This happens so much at the Institute. It's depressing really.

The Irish course was never really the problem. The department assumed that people would be near fluent after the JC so they designed (this is for the previous syllabi) a course centered on writing with a bit of literature. Compare it to English, a course entirely based on writing with an extremely heavy literature slant. Not unreasonable by any means. After the LC, it was expected that everybody would be bilingual.

Going by that assumption, it's a well made course that has problems (like pretty much all Leaving Cert subjects) based on an overemphasis on rote-learning. This is because this is the easiest way to get our inept schools (that are horribly funded) to teach anything since it doesn't require neither skills nor money. It doesn't matter that they tried to make the course easier and more speaking-oriented (not a bad thing at all, given that the poor teaching standards prevented the previous course from being a viable option for testing Irish proficiency since most Irish students did not have the department's assumed standard of Irish after JC) since it too is based just as much on rote-learning as the previous course. It only delivers a short-term benefit on people's oral skills and only on the regurgitated material. So it is almost as useless as the previous course thanks to horrible teaching standards.

Overall, I honestly don't know what to do with it. If so many other countries around the world (even USA and UK) have far superior language teaching to ours, it's going to be extremely difficult to get people to a high standard outside of Gaeltachts and Gaelscoils. I understand that there is a difference between learning a useful language for 13 years (like English in mainland Europe) and a not so useful language like Irish over 13 years. But considering that English is every bit as difficult as Irish to actually learn properly and Europeans happen to have a far better grasp of not only speaking, but writing English than we do for Irish, maybe it's to do with their superior education systems.

spurious

I would keep a compulsory spoken exam. It has already been lowered to a childish standard compared to anything we did back in the 70s. As a non-written exam, it could qualify for a different amount of points for university.

I would have an optional literature/history of the language exam for those that were interested/able.

Don't start me on the exemptions for Irish 'oh but he doesn't need one for French'...

skooterblue2

Biggest load of rubbish and excuse for jobs for jobs sake. Irish is unfairly thrust upon pupils who will NEVER use it in their professional or private lives so to make jobs for Irish teachers and dont propagate industry. If you want it fine study it but dont force it on people. All the Irish teachers I have come across have no respect for other teachers or subjects. They kept students in past the class time and openly divided communities.
"Well he got my Mary an A in onorocha"
".....but he destroyed maths with giving too much Irish homework".

The fupper got his in the end and was sacked/ forced to retire early, publically. It all ended in court with himself and the principal claiming unfair dismissal. We really need to look at the people we allow teach our students

skooterblue2

Iscreamkone wrote: »

Another element to the debate is that plenty of affluent parents get little Johnny diagnosed as dyslexic or whatever to avoid doing Irish and getting an exemption from the NUI requirement to have Irish to LC. Poorer families often can not afford this and are thus at a competitive disadvantage in the points race.
As if they weren't far enough behind already, with the amount of money spent on fee paying schools and grinds/grind schools.

That is a completely separate debate. If "little Johnny" has a diagnosis of ASD from a registered psychologist that is fine. It is a reasonable accommodation to come to. The problem is the HSE/DoE employ hack psychologist who dont know their asshole from their earhole. I dont know if this they are incapable of making an accurate diagnosis or because the institute directs them not to in order to save money.

Its attitudes like "little Johnny" that prevent parents getting proper diagnosis and students uptaking in supports. ASD occurs all parts of society. It is the students at either pole that suffer the most. The wealthier families tend to "pay it away" and the student still suffers equally as much as the student whos well meaning parents "pray it away" (ie fruitless look for answers). It is the students in the middle that benefit, as they have both the open mind to embrace it and the money to pursue an accurate diagnosis.