Gaelic pupils ‘must double to safeguard the language’

By John Ross
Published on Tuesday 4 October 2011 23:09

THE number of children being taught in Gaelic each year needs to more than double to reverse the decline of the language.

A new five-year plan says the 400 pupils entering Gaelic medium education primary-one classes should increase to more than 800.

Gaelic development agency Bord na Gaidhlig wants to see a 15 per cent year-on-year increase in schools between 2012 and 2017, as well as rises in adult learners and those learning Gaelic at home and as a second language in schools and colleges.

A public consultation on how to increase the number of Gaelic speakers was launched yesterday by the learning and skills minister Dr Alasdair Allan.

The number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland fell from about 250,000 in the 1891 census to 65,000 in 2001. Between 1991 and 2001, numbers fell by 7,300, an average annual fall of 730.

However, the rate of decline had begun to slow and the number of young Gaelic speakers had risen. This was largely due to the success of Gaelic medium education (GME).

The new plan’s headline target is to attain stability in the number of people speaking Gaelic by raising the rate at which new Gaelic speakers are created to “replacement level” – the level at which the loss of mostly older Gaelic speakers is balanced by the creation of new speakers.

The aim is that by 2021 the census should show continuing growth in Gaelic speakers, and by 2031 it will reach replacement level.

This will need a co-ordinated approach by local authorities, the Scottish Government and other agencies to plan for growth in access to GME across Scotland through a programme of capital investment and workforce planning.

Bord na Gaidhlig says that in order to consolidate the status of Gaelic education and learning as an established feature of educational provision in Scotland, it will investigate with Scottish ministers the possibility of creating a legal entitlement to GME.

Murdo MacIver, chair of the National Gaelic Education Steering Group (NGESG), said Gaelic medium education is the only widely available opportunity to be educated bilingually in Scotland.

“We owe it to young people across the nation to allow more of them to access Gaelic medium education,” he added.

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Taigh na Croiche

Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 08:14 PM

Let's hope the numbers do go up. Would be good to see new Gaelic units and schools in different parts of Edinburgh as well as in the Lothians, Fife, Stirling and Falkirk. If for no other reason, Gaelic speaking pupils have better English and a better grasp of other languages too.

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