A chara, – Hurray for Minister for Education Mary Coughlan for ploughing ahead with 40 per cent of the marks for Irish in the Leaving Cert being awarded for the oral examination (Home News, August 31st).
I have no doubt but that teachers and students alike will rise to the challenge and that as a result Irish will become a popular subject.
Could the Minister not spare a thought, however, for the fluent speaker who will sit bored through Irish class? Is Irish doomed to become the only official EU language where its native speakers are not meaningfully exposed to its literature and challenged at second-level?
It was proposed to offer an optional subject of “Irish literature/translation studies” to challenge and round off the second-level education of fluent and native speakers, but this was rejected as giving a minority an extra subject.
We all rejoice in families who practise music at home and never grumble if their children take music as an extra Leaving Cert subject.
Neither do we grumble where students with Russian or French at home pick up extra honours in these subjects. Is the anti-Irish bias really so strong in the Department of Education to deny this educational need of Irish speaking children? – Is mise,
DÁITHÍ Mac CÁRTHAIGH BL
Gaeltacht Ráth Chairn
Baile Átha Buí
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