Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2012
55 Deputy Patrick O’Donovan asked the Minister for Education and Skills the plans currently in place to encourage the teaching of languages from BRIC countries, as part of the aim of targeting exports to the emerging markets in these countries. [10013/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraThere are a range of foreign languages available on the curriculum in schools -- French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Arabic. Chinese and Portuguese are not on the curriculum. It is not possible in the current budgetary situation to expand the range of languages on the post primary curriculum. 81% of second level pupils study three languages, Irish, English and a continental language, to completion of upper second level, and over 70% of schools offer two foreign languages or more. Russian is offered as a curricular language as part of the Post-Primary languages initiative. It is offered in 20 schools and 625 students are currently studying Russian. The State Examinations Commission also provides examinations in a range of "non-curricular EU languages", including Portuguese. Students at third level have access to a wide range of foreign language courses that can be taken as core subjects or in combination with a range of other disciplines. Details of Portuguese, Russian and Chinese language programmes which are offered both in higher education and adult education settings are available on the Qualifax website www.qualifax.ie. No Indian languages are currently offered. However English is the secondary official language in India.
