Make Irish Optional

Spooky1666

Hey Guys

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/p...079632?sk=info

Irish is a beautiful language. It should be preserved and it's use promoted. But having it enforced as a subject is having none of those effects. There are people who are not good or just don't like learning languages and they shouldn't be forced to do so. SO PLEASE HELP US by LIKING THE PAGE TODAY. This page will act as a petition and when we get enough supporters I will forward to on to a TD. AND OH please pass on the message to your friends. Thank you

PS. If you are against making Irish optional plz don't see this post as an offence. These are just my thoughts on the matter

pancakes rule

Can I point a few things out..
1) We're forced to do a foreign language, there's no campaign to get rid of that
2) The reason Irish is hated so much is because of it's course, if it were taught as a foreign language and maybe an optional literature course at LC level, it would be more popular
3) If it is optional, less of an emphasis will be put on it, less people will go to the gaeltacht, their economies will shrink and the inhabitants will be forced to move away, effectively killing the language.
4) It won't be preserved or promoted by being optional, in the UK a foreign language was made optional, in 2001, 74% of college students continued with a foreign language somewhere in their course, in 2011 that dropped to 44%
5) I believe maths is hated more, just from what I hear from my friends. I know tons of people who hate the subject irish, think the language is pointless, really, but would still like to be able to speak it, but with the curriculum we have at the moment with most of the emphasis of literature, it isn't possible to learn the language at all.

Why make Irish optional and keep maths, english and another language compulsory?
If we had 75% of primary schools as gaelscoileanna, and then in first year taught it as if no one had ever heard a word of it in their lives and keep it at the same pace as other languages throughout secondary school, it would make it more liked, more ordinary, increase the number of fluent speakers and have more respect in Ireland.
I'm not naive enough to think that we could have a completely Irish speaking nation, but I do believe that if you have more all irish schools and people who are learning the language in a way that they can understand, it would increase interest in it.

For example, one of the most popular language courses in colleges is French. The most commonly taught language in schools, also French. Coincidence? I think not.

Ave Sodalis

I agree with pancakes' friends. I love the language, it's a beautiful language, however, I'm really struggling when it comes to learning it. Would love to be fluent.

I also agree with making it an opinional literature course for the LC. It would make it a lot more enjoyable if we didn't have to learn poems and pros but not able to understand a word in the books

Paul.M92

pancakes rule wrote: »

Can I point a few things out..
1) We're forced to do a foreign language, there's no campaign to get rid of that

Well, actually a foreign language is not enforced in every school. Most schools only advise it as it is a sure fire way to get to college. Some schools don't even do a foreign language as they find it unecessary....

AbsentPonderer

Its the course that puts people off learning the language! for Higher level we have 13 poems, and 5 prós..
however with the recent change the numbers should steadily rise again. now the oral is worth 40% which is a greater incentive and there are far less poems...
the teaching of Irish has to improve at primary level and make it more exciting because once first year hits you either like it or not and the teachers just flake into the course!
Irish to always remain compulsory for sure!

GoldRush4821

pancakes rule wrote: »

Can I point a few things out..
1) We're forced to do a foreign language, there's no campaign to get rid of that
2) The reason Irish is hated so much is because of it's course, if it were taught as a foreign language and maybe an optional literature course at LC level, it would be more popular
3) If it is optional, less of an emphasis will be put on it, less people will go to the gaeltacht, their economies will shrink and the inhabitants will be forced to move away, effectively killing the language.
4) It won't be preserved or promoted by being optional, in the UK a foreign language was made optional, in 2001, 74% of college students continued with a foreign language somewhere in their course, in 2011 that dropped to 44%
5) I believe maths is hated more, just from what I hear from my friends. I know tons of people who hate the subject irish, think the language is pointless, really, but would still like to be able to speak it, but with the curriculum we have at the moment with most of the emphasis of literature, it isn't possible to learn the language at all.

Why make Irish optional and keep maths, english and another language compulsory?
If we had 75% of primary schools as gaelscoileanna, and then in first year taught it as if no one had ever heard a word of it in their lives and keep it at the same pace as other languages throughout secondary school, it would make it more liked, more ordinary, increase the number of fluent speakers and have more respect in Ireland.
I'm not naive enough to think that we could have a completely Irish speaking nation, but I do believe that if you have more all irish schools and people who are learning the language in a way that they can understand, it would increase interest in it.

For example, one of the most popular language courses in colleges is French. The most commonly taught language in schools, also French. Coincidence? I think not.

There's no campaign against foreign languages because everybody accepts that French/German are infinitely more useful both in terms of employment opportunities and the social side of living in a foreign country. Considering the status of Irish as compulsory, you would imagine that there would be many more jobs requiring the language or at least giving you extra credit for being able to speak it, but this is not the case. Therefore, since most people view foreign languages from the perspective of employment opportunities and not culture, its not surprising that students no longer want to study it. I agree that it would be great if we could all hold conversations in Irish, but this is not realistic and I believe it should be a students prerogative whether or not they want to study it.

However, I don't know what Fine Gael's policy will be regarding JC Irish. If their plan is to make it compulsory for the JC, then they better make their best effort to ensure that the course is as interesting as possible so that more people are enticed into doing it for the LC. As it currently stands, if I can remember correctly, it's no more appealing than the LC course, with all the same requirements of poetry and prose, although admittedly not to the same standard. I personally believe that Fine Gael's policy will encourage students who are passionate about the language to pursue it and you will generally see a better standard of Irish speaker emerging from secondary school.

As a side note, English and Maths are not technically compulsory subjects. This has been stated to death, but only Irish is truly compulsory although most, if not all, schools tend to offer english and maths as core subjects, thereby revoking the optional aspect.

pancakes rule

Paul.M92 wrote: »

Well, actually a foreign language is not enforced in every school. Most schools only advise it as it is a sure fire way to get to college. Some schools don't even do a foreign language as they find it unecessary....

Fair enough, but like you said, 'a sure fire way to get into college'.
I bet there are plenty of people who want to do something where they'll never need a foreign language and they still have to do it at school even though they hate it.
I hated french, as did many other people in my year. I was allowed drop because I speak fluent German, but when another girl asked if she could, the school said no and weren't open to any negotiation or persuasion.

I don't think either a language or Irish (yes I know it's a language too) should be optional, purely because it's better to have a broad an education as possible before specialising in something in college. Although if one's optional, the other should be too.

Spooky1666

pancakes rule wrote: »

Can I point a few things out..
1) We're forced to do a foreign language, there's no campaign to get rid of that
2) The reason Irish is hated so much is because of it's course, if it were taught as a foreign language and maybe an optional literature course at LC level, it would be more popular
3) If it is optional, less of an emphasis will be put on it, less people will go to the gaeltacht, their economies will shrink and the inhabitants will be forced to move away, effectively killing the language.
4) It won't be preserved or promoted by being optional, in the UK a foreign language was made optional, in 2001, 74% of college students continued with a foreign language somewhere in their course, in 2011 that dropped to 44%
5) I believe maths is hated more, just from what I hear from my friends. I know tons of people who hate the subject irish, think the language is pointless, really, but would still like to be able to speak it, but with the curriculum we have at the moment with most of the emphasis of literature, it isn't possible to learn the language at all.

Why make Irish optional and keep maths, english and another language compulsory?
If we had 75% of primary schools as gaelscoileanna, and then in first year taught it as if no one had ever heard a word of it in their lives and keep it at the same pace as other languages throughout secondary school, it would make it more liked, more ordinary, increase the number of fluent speakers and have more respect in Ireland.
I'm not naive enough to think that we could have a completely Irish speaking nation, but I do believe that if you have more all irish schools and people who are learning the language in a way that they can understand, it would increase interest in it.

For example, one of the most popular language courses in colleges is French. The most commonly taught language in schools, also French. Coincidence? I think not.

Hi
A second Language is not compulsory fyi. The gealtacht costs about a 1000 a week. Someone who doesn't like Irish certainly won't be willing to spend that to spend a week of their precious summer stuck speaking a language they hate. Only people who like or at least are alright with the language would go and therefore if those who don't like Irish don't study it it shouldn't have an effect on the prosperity of the gealtacht areas as usually only people who enjoy it go there in the first place. Yes the course does not work for us. I believe that Irish should be compulsory at junior cert and a choice at leaving cert. If not the course should be reformed completely. Irish is of very little use to us at a career perspective so it shouldn't be taught with having written work in mind. It should be taught with have communication at mind. So that we could leave it by JC level with the skill to be at least be able to have a mid-level conversation and not just know how to write a story and letter and have any number of poems stuck in our head. And if statistics show that people stop taking out a language when it becomes optional it obviously show THATS WHAT THEY WANT. When an option is available people take the better one. The one they want not they one they don't like. It just goes to show that in U.K a lot of people didn't want to study that optional language. There was a letter in the Irish Independent by someone wanting to make maths optional. I personally believe that all subjects should be optional after a certain level. But the strong argument that people have with English and maths is that they WILL have an important part in future and education,careers a and everyday life. Irish only has a play the cultural aspect with the exception of political occupations.

Iguana Bob

God i hope irish is made optional, what a waist of around a 1000 hours of learning that was, havent spoken a word in 8 years. would have been much better spent on maths or a foreign language.

ride-the-spiral

pancakes rule wrote: »

Can I point a few things out..
1) We're forced to do a foreign language, there's no campaign to get rid of that
2) The reason Irish is hated so much is because of it's course, if it were taught as a foreign language and maybe an optional literature course at LC level, it would be more popular
3) If it is optional, less of an emphasis will be put on it, less people will go to the gaeltacht, their economies will shrink and the inhabitants will be forced to move away, effectively killing the language.
4) It won't be preserved or promoted by being optional, in the UK a foreign language was made optional, in 2001, 74% of college students continued with a foreign language somewhere in their course, in 2011 that dropped to 44%
5) I believe maths is hated more, just from what I hear from my friends. I know tons of people who hate the subject irish, think the language is pointless, really, but would still like to be able to speak it, but with the curriculum we have at the moment with most of the emphasis of literature, it isn't possible to learn the language at all.

Why make Irish optional and keep maths, english and another language compulsory?
If we had 75% of primary schools as gaelscoileanna, and then in first year taught it as if no one had ever heard a word of it in their lives and keep it at the same pace as other languages throughout secondary school, it would make it more liked, more ordinary, increase the number of fluent speakers and have more respect in Ireland.
I'm not naive enough to think that we could have a completely Irish speaking nation, but I do believe that if you have more all irish schools and people who are learning the language in a way that they can understand, it would increase interest in it.

For example, one of the most popular language courses in colleges is French. The most commonly taught language in schools, also French. Coincidence? I think not.

1) We're not forced, my brother didn't do a foreign language.
2) While true, people hate Irish for many other reasons. They don't see it as useful etc. Whereas I don't like it because I consider what one makes of their own culture a choice and I believe that if somebody does not consider the language a part of their own identity as Irish, they shouldn't be forced to accept it. Basically I find people being forced to study something out of cultural importance elitist.
3) Everybody i've ever known who has gone to the gaeltacht has started going before 3rd year, when Irish will be compulsory anyway.
4) So be it, if Irish is as living a language as you claim then taking it off life-support won't have an effect, but if it has a negative effect then that shows that there's no interest in the first place, which isn't true. Anyway the UK have a 3 or 4 subject system whereas we have a 7 or 8 subject system so you can't compare the systems in terms of choice.
5) I agree that it should be focused on language rather than literature, but I believe it should still be optional.

The reason there's no call for English and Maths to be made optional is because Irish is considered compulsory out of culture, the skills of learning Irish are common to all foreign languages really whereas maths and english have specific skills that they teach which are considered very transferable, the logic of maths and the ability to communicate properly in english. Perhaps english and maths should be made optional, but I know that 90% of college courses would make it a requirement anyway.

johnmcdnl

A facebook page isn't going to really do much tbh in all fairness...

as for all your other points - doesn't it come down to why should I have to learn French/German/Spainish to get into a huge number of courses (that aren't even lanuage realated) but then be allowed skip the national language...

your points seem to revolve around that some people can't learn languages - well wouldn't it be more in line to either get rid of all languages or make them optional or at least allow them to drop the foreign language...

we should be trying to save our heritage that has been built up for thousands of years - give another 200 years and I reckon that Irish will be the same as some accident language and people will resent people today for allowing it to decline so rapidly...


give me one reason why I should learn French over Irish - I'm going to preempt the you can get a job abroad with French..
well if your able to learn French to such a standard that you can work in France with it you obviously have no problems learning languages so why can't your learn Irish just as easily????

The Irish course needs to be changed to remove the literary aspects which are tedious and don't help develop a students grasp of the language at all... but the last thing that should be let happen is to make Irish optional because that will spell the end for Irish because who is honestly going to choose Irish over basically any other subject when you look at the workload involved in Irish

GoldRush4821

PEOPLE!! I know I'm being really pedantic here, but can we please stop making the mistake of saying that English and Maths are compulsory subjects when they're not. Even if it's the case that every student in the country is doing them , which is the likelihood, saying that they are compulsory isn't true. Instead, these subjects are assimilated into the "core" subjects of every school and taught as such, therefore students cannot opt out of them. However, you do not need to take either exam as they are not compulsory. Irish is the only compulsory subject which currently exists on the LC course. If you were being home schooled, you could choose to not take english or maths. Even if this is extremely unlikely, it is an option. Therefore, it is not compulsory.

Just so we're clear.

Iguana Bob

johnmcdnl wrote: »

give me one reason why I should learn French over Irish - I'm going to preempt the you can get a job abroad with French..
well if your able to learn French to such a standard that you can work in France with it you obviously have no problems learning languages so why can't your learn Irish just as easily????

still takes time and effort to learn so why not concentrate on a language that is useful
well you could use the time to improve the terrible level of maths that exists.
i really dont care if the irish language dies, it is no longer useful, the time could be used better. i had 6 classes of irish a week, if it was an optional subject i would have had the option to learn something useful

pancakes rule

The Gaeltacht does not cost 1000 euro per week. The one I went to last year was one of the most expensive there is and that cost 940 euro for three weeks. There are Gaeltachts where you can pay for the amount of weeks you want to be there for, so it's cheaper.

I know that quite a lot of people do go to the Gaeltacht from first year onwards. But out of all the people I know from home, the vast majority, including everybody in my year excluding me, and most of the people in fifth and fourth year in my school have never been to the gaeltacht. Last year there was a huge lack of people going and a few colaistes cancelled their c course. That was just because of a recession. There's going to be a lot less people even thinking about going if they don't do the subject. I know plenty of people who went for the first time.

All I'm going to say is that everybody has a different opinion and you all know what mine is. I think it's ridic that everyone is going turn this into an argument about what they think of Irish and no one is going to change their opinion. So, I'd advise people, instead of saying they hate Irish or they think it should be a core subject, just like the page or don't like the page. But keep your opinions to yourself.

Spooky1666

Wow this is turning into a big debate. Guys I don't mind what you think. If you like and support the idea then all I ask is of you to press the like button.
I know most likely it isn't going to do much but ignoring it is sure not going to make it do much. My friend Darragh goes to the gaeltacht in Galway every year and his mom was talking to mine about it she even gave us a brochure she said a 1000 a week for them but maybe that counts his brother so that would make 500 a week per person. Either way I'm sure prices very from gaeltacht to gaeltacht. But thats beyond this. I think all subjects should be a choice after a certain level. But people will still take them if their third level course requires it. If it doesn't then it should be their choice.

Evan93

johnmcdnl wrote: »

we should be trying to save our heritage that has been built up for thousands of years - give another 200 years and I reckon that Irish will be the same as some accident language and people will resent people today for allowing it to decline so rapidly...


give me one reason why I should learn French over Irish - I'm going to preempt the you can get a job abroad with French..
well if your able to learn French to such a standard that you can work in France with it you obviously have no problems learning languages so why can't your learn Irish just as easily????

No, people who want to save their hertiage are more than welcome to, however, most of our youth know more about the antics of such and such a celebrity than the reasons why irish has been preserved throughout history. And quite frankly, people don't care.

Attiudes advocating the preservation of culture are futile, to say the least. A person should be given the choice to participate in culture. However, it is forced on us here. Which is wrong. It's like saying if you don't drink on St. Patrick's Day you are not participating in Irish culture. It's a stupid argument.

To your second point about why one "should learn French over Irish".
Well, it may seem obvious, but what if the person doesn't want to? What if a person simply prefers French? Is that not an adequate enough reason.
Also, French has a much wider sphere than just France. A myriad of areas all over the world speak it. And this isn't just French. It goes for most foreign languages in secondaries. Irish has a limited number of fluent speakers throughout the globe. I'm pretty sure it's under 100,000.

xclw

nah i think it should be kept compulsory, its part of who we are and we should learn it, if its not compulsory people won't do it, like should we also make maths and english optional too if not?

deise go deo

Ye have a bit of a way to go yet lads, When did ye start the facebook page?

The pro Side for Irish being a Core Subject have a facebook page too, They have over 9000 after two weeks, They also have a petition of over 15000 which they have handed to FG already.

I think ye will have a bit of an uphill battle to catch up.

deise go deo

Irish citizens should have free-will and the right of self-determination.

They do, outside the Education system there is nothing forcing people to use Irish, In side the education system there tends to be very little choice. Irish is not the only core subject.

Over 12% of students drop-out of school after the Junior Cert. Allowing students to choose subjects for themselves would encourage them to stay in school for longer.

I think this will need to be backed up a bit further, Is there any evidience suggesting that a lack of choice is the reason that people drop out?
I think it is far more likely that other issues like underperformance in general, family issues, and a desire to go and work sooner are by far more likely to be factors.

Competition from other subjects would drive reform in the Irish education system. The standard of teaching and relevance to students would have to improve in order to attract students.

You dont need competion to drive reform, you need the Minister for Education to drive reform, Competition can only drive refoem if Irish suffers badly from being made optional, not an inviting prospect in my opinion.

Students perform better at subjects they choose for themselves.

Again, I would have to question your sources. I have seen some evidience that suggests that people actually perform better in Irish than some optional subjects.

Forcing students to study Irish at Leaving Cert level is denying them the right to study another subject.

Not true, People can choose to study extra subjects to study if they want, I did Music as an extra subject.

maggy_thatcher

deise go deo wrote: »

They do, outside the Education system there is nothing forcing people to use Irish, In side the education system there tends to be very little choice. Irish is not the only core subject.

But it is the only mandatory subject. Whether or not a subject is a "core" one or not is up to a school. Whether or not it is mandatory is up to the Dept. of Education.

deise go deo wrote: »

You dont need competion to drive reform, you need the Minister for Education to drive reform, Competition can only drive refoem if Irish suffers badly from being made optional, not an inviting prospect in my opinion.

I believe the only plans would be to make it optional for the Leaving Certificate only. This means that in order to get that far, a student would have studied it for 8 years of primary and (at least) 3 years of secondary. If the Irish language would suffer because people weren't forced to study it for an additional two years, how vulnerable is this language?

deise go deo wrote: »

Not true, People can choose to study extra subjects to study if they want, I did Music as an extra subject.

I did 8 subjects for the Leaving - 6 Higher level, and 2 Ordinary level. The 2 ordinary level ones (Irish & French) were purely because it was a requirement of either the school (French) or the country (Irish) that I take them. As such, I got a D1 in pass Irish - which was much higher than my target of a D3. The only thing that being forced to study Irish to me meant that I had less time to study on the subjects that actually mattered (either for entering college or actually using in real life) once I left school.

cbaz09

If they make Irish optional what about English and Maths.

I'm not good at Maths and if the numbers in my year doing Ordinary level mean anything then a lot more people find Maths difficult than they do Irish.

deise go deo

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

But it is the only mandatory subject. Whether or not a subject is a "core" one or not is up to a school. Whether or not it is mandatory is up to the Dept. of Education.

Its not actually manditory to study it, The student has to study it to be registered as a student, If the student dosent study it, then the school dosent get a capitation for that student. So schools make it manditory.

I believe the only plans would be to make it optional for the Leaving Certificate only. This means that in order to get that far, a student would have studied it for 8 years of primary and (at least) 3 years of secondary. If the Irish language would suffer because people weren't forced to study it for an additional two years, how vulnerable is this language?

There are two things,

-Making it optional will have a knock on effect on the whole system. Like it did in England when Languages were made optional in 2001.

-Compulsion is not the problem with Irish, Its curriculum is, making it optional will not change this, Reform is needed in the Curriculum and the sooner the better. Leaving the current curriculum in place will cause harm, making it optional with that curriculum in place will cause more harm.

I did 8 subjects for the Leaving - 6 Higher level, and 2 Ordinary level. The 2 ordinary level ones (Irish & French) were purely because it was a requirement of either the school (French) or the country (Irish) that I take them. As such, I got a D1 in pass Irish - which was much higher than my target of a D3. The only thing that being forced to study Irish to me meant that I had less time to study on the subjects that actually mattered (either for entering college or actually using in real life) once I left school.

There are quite a few Universitys that require Irish. Surely Irish must then be a subject that matters?

maggy_thatcher

deise go deo wrote: »

Its not actually manditory to study it, The student has to study it to be registered as a student, If the student dosent study it, then the school dosent get a capitation for that student. So schools make it manditory.

So the schools make it mandatory as a money-making exercise?

deise go deo wrote: »

-Compulsion is not the problem with Irish, Its curriculum is, making it optional will not change this, Reform is needed in the Curriculum and the sooner the better. Leaving the current curriculum in place will cause harm, making it optional with that curriculum in place will cause more harm.

Reform is needed, yes (personally I'd remove the literature component completely into a different optional subject, and make the exam 95% oral, but that's just me). After that, though, making it optional would mean that people who were *interested* in the subject would attend, making the classes more controllable. We have classrooms full of students forced to study the solitary mandatory subject in our curriculum purely as a last-ditch attempt to keep the language "alive".

deise go deo wrote: »

There are quite a few Universitys that require Irish. Surely Irish must then be a subject that matters?

Hence why I aimed for the D3 in pass-level Irish. But the only reason I can think some universities made it mandatory was to see can you put up with studying a really badly taught language for 14 years. In the end, for me, I went to TCD - so what Irish I did was a complete waste of time.

deise go deo

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

So the schools make it mandatory as a money-making exercise?

I wouldent call it a money making excersize, They dont charge fees, so they get a capatition per stdent to pay for running costs.

Reform is needed, yes (personally I'd remove the literature component completely into a different optional subject, and make the exam 95% oral, but that's just me). After that, though, making it optional would mean that people who were *interested* in the subject would attend, making the classes more controllable. We have classrooms full of students forced to study the solitary mandatory subject in our curriculum purely as a last-ditch attempt to keep the language "alive".

I think that everyone has a capasity to learn language,(Everyone speaks at least one) Learning languages is also proven to be beneficial from an educational stand point.

Making Irish optional now would put several barriers in the way of people who wanted to study the language, and In terms of reviving the language, Making it optional would reduce its status comparative to English, no where in the world is there evidience to suggest that this would be beneficial to the revival of a language.

Hence why I aimed for the D3 in pass-level Irish. But the only reason I can think some universities made it mandatory was to see can you put up with studying a really badly taught language for 14 years. In the end, for me, I went to TCD - so what Irish I did was a complete waste of time.

Why dose going to TCD make it a waste? Your time learning Irish was beneficial to you weather you reaise it or not. Several studies have shown that learning a second language has cognative benefits for the learner.

maggy_thatcher

deise go deo wrote: »

I think that everyone has a capasity to learn language,(Everyone speaks at least one) Learning languages is also proven to be beneficial from an educational stand point.

Just out of curiosity, what languages do you speak/write? Judging from the high number of spelling/grammatical errors present in your posts, I'm going to guess English is not your primary language?

deise go deo wrote: »

Making Irish optional now would put several barriers in the way of people who wanted to study the language, and In terms of reviving the language, Making it optional would reduce its status comparative to English, no where in the world is there evidience to suggest that this would be beneficial to the revival of a language.

English is optional already (as far as the DOE is concerned, not necessarily in specific schools/universities)...making Irish optional would put it on equal footing with English. Remember, if it was made optional at LC level, there's nothing to prevent the NUI colleges from still forcing you to have Irish to enter their courses, thereby keeping it effectively mandatory for those who want to go into any of those colleges).

deise go deo wrote: »

Why dose going to TCD make it a waste? Your time learning Irish was beneficial to you weather you reaise it or not. Several studies have shown that learning a second language has cognative benefits for the learner.

Yes - but I was already learning a second language -- French. During the Junior cycle, I also did German. I found that I wasn't very good at them, so in the LC, I switched to ordinary level French. In addition to useful languages, and despite the fact that I find learning languages a struggle, I was also forced to study an additional language that had little or no use once I left school - Irish. The fact that I aimed for a D3 should make it pretty clear that as far as I was concerned, the 200 minutes a week in classes + whatever time doing homework was basically spent doing the bare minimum to pass the course; depriving me from working to get high marks in the subjects that would matter in the CAO system.
It's been many years since I finished school now, but my memory of the leaving certificate Irish exam was basically sitting there barely able to understand what was written on the page.

lctake2

I think that having Irish as a core subject puts us at a disadvantage internationally. I applied to the UK and while people I was competing with had physics or chemistry as a main subject I was stuck with a language that there were no real benefits to learning.
I wasn't born in the country (moved here at 2 though) so I didn't have to do Irish to get into college but my school chose not to tell me that because of the money they get based on the number of students studying Irish.
Irish has been compulsory for years but I would say 90% of people come out of school not being able to speak it anyway. I got an a1 and couldn't really have a basic conversation.
People say then why keep English and maths then? To me that's a stupid question. Maths is important in most professions, it would be a requirement for a massive amount of courses and young people wouldn't choose to do it because a lot find it hard and then they would be limiting themselves hugely.
I don't think I even need to explain why people need to study English. It's central to everything.
I think that cultural heritage is all well and good and there are ways to promote it in all its forms, not just the language but the education system and it's resources should not be wasted on forcing people into learning an unnecessary language
Slightly off topic but I would have chosen to do it anyway just for the sake of points

ciarashauna

lctake2 wrote: »

I wasn't born in the country (moved here at 2 though) so I didn't have to do Irish to get into college but my school chose not to tell me that because of the money they get based on the number of students studying Irish.

You didn't have to do it even though you moved to Ireland when you were two?

lctake2

I would have not needed Irish to get into any of the NUI colleges because my birth cert was issued in another country

ciarashauna

So did you do/or do Irish in school? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just confused about my own Irish exemption.

thisisadamh

You definitely need Maths! Maths sharpens the mind and teaches critical thinking. I hate the English course though, most of the stuff in the English course is pointless. But I really think Irish should be optional. I have absolutely no interest in the language. I understand cultural identity but if a student really does not want to learn it, why force feed it to them. I am south african so I have no real link to the language and have no desire to learn it. So why should I have to learn it? My parents even dont even want me to learn it, but I cant get exempted because I arrived one year before the cut off time.

What could be done is that Irish could be made optional but the parents need to come in. So if the parents of the student feel so strongly about it, they can have ultimate control over whether the student does it or not after JC.

aine92

I'm in college now but when I did the Leaving Cert last year, I LOVED Irish but the course, being honest, is a bitch. Its so outdated and crap, something needs to be done. I think if it wasn't compulsory then people who actually WANT to do it would and we wouldn't have everyone moaning about it.

When they took Welsh as a language off the curriculum in Wales, the number of people speaking it actually increased. Nobody likes being force fed :rolleyes: