Vol. 487 No. 2
44 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of hours per week devoted to the Irish language in primary and secondary schools as required by their respective curricula; the number of man hours spent teaching Irish in a typical primary school on an annual basis; the percentage of total teaching time that this represents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3556/98]
At second level, the approved course for junior pupils and for those following a leaving certificate course, must include Irish. The rules of the Department of Education and Science do not specify the amount of time per week to be devoted to teaching the subject at second level. However this will vary with the year of study and the programme being followed. It is estimated that the time involved would be between two hours and three hours 20 minutes per class each week.
At primary level, the Department of Education and Science does not prescribe a specific amount of time per week for any curricular area. When the primary curriculum was being introduced to schools in the 1970s, inspectors issued a set of guidelines on time-allocation at in-career development courses for teachers. Their recommendations have become the accepted norm in the system and were supported in the "Report of the Review Body on the Primary Curriculum (1990)", known as the Quinlan report. It was recommended in these guidelines that 19 per cent of the instruction time in infant classes and 21 per cent of the instruction time in classes I to VI would be devoted to Irish.
Primary schools typically allocate between three and three hours 30 minutes per week to teaching spoken Irish in infant classes and between four hours 30 minutes and five hours per week to the teaching of Irish, including oral Irish, reading and writing, to classes I to VI. In a primary school year of 183 days or 36.6 weeks, this would approximate to between 110 hours and 128 hours per year in infant classes and between 165 and 183 hours per year in classes I to VI.
