This will be entirely non-acrimonious. The Adjournment matter is the need to ensure effective arrangements in assessing the large numbers of pupils to be examined under the new junior certificate curriculum in respect of aural testing and oral competence in the Irish language.
I have raised this matter on behalf of many teachers who are my constituents. The Minister is, of course, aware that there is very general concern among teachers, the ASTI and the TUI, about the new junior certificate in general, and general concern about the likely way in which it will operate. There are complaints about the unsatisfactory in-service situation and so on. There is a genuine fear that inadequate resources may frustrate the whole purpose of what is a very exciting curriculum. Much of the dissatisfaction stems from uncertainty about what will happen. This is particularly true about the aspect of the matter which I am raising this evening, a particular aspect of a general concern.
Not only teachers but bodies like Conradh na Gaeilge and Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge are concerned in particular about how the assessment of the Irish language will be provided for. There are other matters of concern where Irish is concerned such as the long time lack of any suitable textbooks — a matter in which I was involved long ago — the lack of suitable reading material for 12 to 15-year-olds, although I understand there is now some progress on that front. That is not the immediate cause of my raising this matter on the Adjournment. It is simply that we do not know if there will be aural and oral components in the Irish examination and how unsatisfactory they will be.
There are over 70,000 junior certificate pupils to be assessed in the course of this examination. Last year, for example, approximately 56,000 students took the Intermediate Certificate Irish course and something like 11,000 students took the Group Certificate. That is a total of 66,000 and it is fair to mention a round figure of 70,000 junior certificate pupils. How will they be provided for? How is their aural understanding — their claustuiscint — and their oral competence — their cumas cainte — to be assessed? That is the nub of my question here tonight. Will this assessment be as satisfactory as that which obtains in modern continental languages? If the same standards are not going to be applied, the junior certificate will be worse than useless.
Gan mheasúnú don teanga labhartha is ar éigean go bhfuil aon chiall leis an teastas sóisearach sa Ghaeilge. Níos mó ná sin, bheadh droch-thionchar ag scrúdú scríofa gan triail chluas-tuisceana ar chleachtas múinteoireachta. Tá an sain-eolas ann cheana féin, sain-eolas ar mheasúnú den sórt atá i gceist agam anseo ar fáil ón dtaithí ar na nua theangacha, Fraincís, Spáinnis agus Gearmáinis. Tá an sain-eolas seo ag cigirí na Roinne. Ní cóir go mbeadh aon fhadhbanna riaracháin ag baint le triail chluas-tuisceana má reachtáiltear í lasitigh den scrúdú oifigiúil, is é sin ar aon raon leis na nua-theangancha.
Tá taithí ag daltaí agus lucht féitheoireachta ar seo cheana. Cuirim i gcás, anuraidh bhí triail chluas-tuisceana ag na hiarrthóirí go léir a dhein na nua-theangacha, suas le 6,000 sa teastas grúpa agus 48,000 sa mheán-teistiméireacht. Dá bhrí sin, sa ghné sin den mheasúnú, is é sin sna nua-theangacha, tá gach rud i gceart agus nílimid ach ag iarraidh go mbeidh na caighdeáin chéanna i gceist sa Ghaeilge. Níl aon tír eile, go bhfios dúinn, in a nglactar le scrúdú scíofa amháin gan triail chluas-tuisceana agus triail chainte a bheith ag gabháil leis. Agus ní heol go mbeidh rud mar seo costasach ach chomh beag. Is é an t-eolas atá agamsa ná nach mbeadh i gceist ach costas de £10,000 nó mar sin.
What I am pleading for, essentially, is that we apply the same standards to Irish as we do to continental languages. I welcome in one way that there is an awareness of Irish as one of the lesser used languages of the Community but the danger of that is that it will be seen as some kind of optional, marginal, freak language that does not have to be taken seriously. We should demand a major role for Irish so that in the end, perhaps, it will get a reasonable treatment. I am speaking here not alone about an educational necessity — that we should apply the best assessment and expertise to Irish — but we should also be positive in the context of 1992 about the cultural contribution we can make to our European partners. What we can give them most distinctively is the Irish language.
There is another development taking place at the moment which gives my rather narrow question a greater general relevance. I think there is evidence of a growing popular appreciation of Irish in the lives of our people. If I may say so, in spite of the efforts of the State over the decades the Irish language will not die. What has happened in the past ten years or so, as is evidenced in the Gaelscoileanna particularly in the naí-scoileanna is that people are appreciating the language not as a badge of fanatical nationalism, as the terrorists would have us regard it, but as an enrichment of their lives and of their individual and national personality. I see that development, the European context and the junior certificate all coming together, as it were. That is why it is so important that the Irish language should not be short-changes in the junior certificate curriculum.