Brian Wilson: A lesson in Gaelic from the Lowlands

Published on Monday 14 March 2011 16:52

The future of the language of the Highlands lies in supporting city schools which offer parents a free choice for their children

EDINBURGH City Council will decide next week on whether or not to create a dedicated Gaelic-medium primary school in the city. Either way, their decision will say a lot about where the language stands in 21st century Scotland.

At stake is the right of parents to opt for their children to be educated through the medium of Gaelic, without any unnatural cap on numbers. The fact that this test is being applied in Scotland's capital adds extra significance to the decision. Fine words about status are one thing. But in practice, is Gaelic truly recognised as a national asset?

That is a crucial question since it is abundantly clear that the future viability of the language rests as much in our cities as in the crofting villages of the Hebrides. Indeed, in purely numerical terms, the balance is already shifting at quite a dramatic pace. After 25 years of Gaelic-medium education, the biggest school rolls are found in Scotland's major centres of population rather than the language's fragile bastions.

On straightforward grounds of educational provision, the case for establishing the Edinburgh school is strong. Demand has been proven with the number of children learning through the medium of Gaelic in a unit at Tollcross Primary School rising from seven young pioneers in 1989 to the current roll of 153. It has been an educational success story. Tollcross is now bursting at the seams.

The status quo is not, therefore, an option. Either Tollcross is extended, or a second unit is created, or a stand-alone Gaelic-medium school is established - or else selection kicks in and the right of some Edinburgh parents to have their children educated through the medium of Gaelic is denied.

By common consent, the first two options have been eliminated. The costs involved in either extending Tollcross or opening a second unit, with a separate staff, make no sense when the third option, a stand-alone school, is more cost-effective, more educationally productive and what the parents want. So the decision facing Edinburgh's councillors is clear-cut.

The building that is under consideration - Bonnington - was a primary school until just a couple of years ago. The cost of revitalising it as a Gaelic-medium school would be modest. But in any case, cost is only one part of the debate and not the most significant one.

The cost of educating a child is pretty much the same no matter what language is used in the classroom. The teachers, the books and the pencils all cost the same.So the argument very quickly comes back to one of rights rather than costs. If rights exist, then they need to be accommodated. Only if Gaelic-medium education, in practice, is still regarded as an optional extra does the possibility arise of children being turned away at the school gates.

It is also worth noting that a Specific Grants Scheme for Gaelic-medium education still exists within the Scottish Government - just about the only piece of ring-fenced local government spending to survive and a testimony to my own view that ring-fencing is an essential instrument if progressive policies at national level are to be delivered in all parts of Scotland. Edinburgh could expect to retrieve a substantial proportion of any transitional or capital costs.

The Specific Grants Scheme was introduced in the mid-1980s by George Younger when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and was crucial in persuading dubious local authorities to make their early commitments to Gaelic-medium education. It is a piece of history which confirms that support for this cause has always transcended political boundaries - as, indeed, has opposition.

In lobbying over the past decade for the establishment of a stand-alone school, the Edinburgh parents have been greatly encouraged by the example from Glasgow, which has always been the leader in Gaelic schooling, going back far beyond the present era. Glasgow was the first authority in Scotland to create a Gaelic-medium unit and then the first to create a stand-alone school which now embraces secondary as well as primary.

All the evidence from Glasgow suggests that a stand-alone school will not only cater for existing demand but encourage it to increase. The Glasgow Gaelic school, located in the old Woodside Secondary near the city centre, now has a school role of 540, up from 320 when it moved to its new location. In terms of Gaelic primary education in Glasgow, it has risen from below 100 in 1991 to 340 today.

There are only a handful of schools in Scotland where three digits are required to count the number of Gaelic-medium pupils and only one of them, Portree, is in the language's traditional heartlands. The others are in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness and North Lanarkshire - where the remarkable story of Condorrat Primary confirms that the language's future lies not only in Lowlands as well as Highlands, but with children who, in the main, have no previous family connection with Gaelic.

And why should it be otherwise? If Gaelic is the property of all Scotland, which is the theory, then that has to be reflected in the educational system. It is a process that every minority language has gone through in order to survive since the demographic trends which carry population from cultural peripheries to melting-pot centres of population are pretty universal.

The unfortunate truth is that there are now alarmingly few children in what are still regarded as the Gaelic heartlands, in any language.No language can survive unless there are people to speak it and the relentlessly negative demography of Scotland's periphery is well on the way to doing the job that Gaelic's many enemies have failed to achieve over the centuries.

In the Western Isles, for example, there are just over 400 primary school children in Gaelic medium units, spread over 20 schools. The Western Isles Council is wrestling with the challenge of keeping schools open when there are hardly any children going into them. This story of declining school rolls sends out dire messages about the economic future of many peripheral communities. But for the Gaelic language and culture, the precipitate decline in numbers among its natural heirs has potentially terminal significance.

This is the environment in which Gaelic-medium education now exists and its continuing development in Scotland's major population centres is correspondingly crucial to the language's future. So the arguments stack up - and all come back to the question of how Scotland regards its indigenous language. The evidence is distinctly mixed and Edinburgh should not add to the confusion.

Back in the early 1980s, I wrote a Gaelic policy for the Scottish Labour Party which asserted the right of parents anywhere in Scotland to have their children educated through the medium of Gaelic. Somewhat to my surprise, it was adopted and then used to encourage local authorities to act accordingly.

In these halcyon days of Lothian Regional Council, there were big figures in Edinburgh local government like John Crichton, Eric Milligan and Phyllis Herriot. I remember them trailing loyally along to fringe meetings on Gaelic education and being persuaded that the establishment of a Gaelic-medium unit in Edinburgh was not only in line with party policy but also the right thing to do.

None of today's councillors, of any political persuasion, has less of a personal background in Gaelic than my good old friends in Lothian. But that should not prevent them, any more than their predecessors, from understanding that what is being asked of them now is also the right thing to do. I hope they rise to the occasion.

• Brian Wilson was the first designated Minister for Gaelic in 1997-98