Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 July 2016
75. Deputy Gino Kenny asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will expedite plans to add Mandarin Chinese to the leaving certificate curriculum; if he will address the equality issues related to the differential treatment of Mandarin Chinese in relation to the number of speakers here and the number of speakers internationally; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21728/16]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Programme for a Partnership Government commits to a range of new subjects and this is something I will work on over the coming years. I intend to develop plans for new subjects beyond what is included in the Programme for Government.
As part of the new Framework for Junior Cycle, schools can decide to include a short course in Chinese language and Culture, prepared by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, in their junior cycle programme. There is also currently a Transition Year module on Chinese, which was taken by 4,825 students in 2015.
The definitive source of statistics on pupils in primary schools for the 2015/2016 academic year is the National School Annual Census. The data shows that of the 553,380 pupils enrolled in 2015/2016, 8,580 defined their nationality as being from a country in Asia. The Primary Online Database (POD) will replace the National School Annual Census as the definitive source of statistics from the 2016/2017 academic year onwards.
At post-primary level there were 345,550 pupils enrolled in second level programmes in the 2015/2016 academic year. Of these 342 pupils indicated that their country of birth was China in the 2015/2016 academic year. I can advise that there were two PLC courses in 2015 which included Chinese language. The total number of beneficiaries was 19. There are 2700 Chinese students studying in Irish HEIs in Ireland and 2300 Chinese students studying in either Irish campuses in China, or studying on joint programmes in China.
