Education
Six families in Belfast established a Gaeltacht area in Belfast in the late 1960s and opened Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in 1970 as the first Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland, and in 1984 was granted the status of a voluntary maintained primary school. The first Naíscoil (Irish-medium nursery school) opened in 1978.
Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) is the representative body for Irish-medium Education. It was set up in 2000 by the Department of Education to promote, facilitate and encourage Irish-medium Education. One of CnaG’s central objectives is to seek to extend the availability of Irish-medium Education to parents who wish to avail of it for their children. Irish language pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there are Irish language secondary schools known as Méanscoileanna in Belfast, Donaghmore, Castlewellan and Armagh.
In the academic year 2011/12, 4691 children were enrolled in Irish-medium education:
- 45 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with 1,047 pupils
- 36 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with 2,892 pupils
- 4 post-primary schools and a post-primary streams with 752 pupils
The British Council administers a scheme to recruit Irish language assistants for English-medium schools in Northern Ireland.
Examinations in Irish are gaining in popularity among school-age and adult students. In 2004, there were 333 entries for A-Level examinations in Irish and 2,630 for GCSE.
Read more about this topic: Irish Language In Northern Ireland
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take this examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one would be a penny the stupider.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)