Local Languages in the UK
Tuesday, 17th March 2009
The number of school pupils in the UK being taught through the medium of Welsh, Scottish Gaelic or Irish has increased significantly over the past decade or so.
According to an article featured on the BBC website recently, the number of children study through Irish in Northern Ireland increased from 484 in 1992 to 3,285 in 2008. In Wales the numbers in Welsh-medium schools increased from 16% in the 1990s to 20% today, and in Scotland just 112 pupils were being taught in Gaelic in 1997, while in 2007 that figure had increased to 2,601.
The first Welsh-medium school in Wales was set up Llanelli in 1947 as a result of parental pressure. The pupils were all native speakers of Welsh initially, but by the 1960s increasing numbers of English speaking parents were sending their children to Welsh-medium schools. Today in some parts of Wales over 95% of the pupils in such schools come from English-speaking homes. One reason for their popularity is that Welsh-medium schools often get better results than English-medium ones, partly because many have smaller class sizes, enthusiastic teachers and innovative teaching materials, and possibly due to the beneficial effects on intelligence of using two languages. Moreover the ability to speak Welsh is now a requirement for most jobs in the public sector in Wales, and increasingly in demand by private employers. A recent survey found that about 40% of Welsh children are fluent in Welsh, compared to 20% of their parents. This bodes well for the future if a significant proportion of these children continue to speak Welsh as they grow up, and raise their own children to do so too.
Irish died out as a community language in Northern Ireland during the 20th century, however in the 1960s a group of families in Belfast decided to establish and Irish-speaking enclave (gaeltacht) on the Shaw’s Road. Since then the Irish-speaking community in Belfast and Northern Ireland has grown significantly, they have set up Irish-medium schools, a radio station, a daily newspaper and a cultural centre, and the prospects for the Irish language in Northern Ireland look good.
In Scotland there has been notable increases in the numbers enrolled in Gaelic-medium education at all levels from nursery to university over the past few years. In Glasgow, for example, a Gaelic school offering education from nursery to A Levels opened in 2006 and now has 700 pupils, the vast majority of whom come from non-Gaelic speaking homes.
While the future of Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic is not secure, the growth of education through these languages is certainly a good sign. In fact the demand for such education is outstripping the supply to the extent that there is a shortage of teachers and materials in some areas.
More about Welsh courses in Cardiff
Tags: english, languages, language, gaelic
Posted by Simon Ager under Attitudes to Language Learning,
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