In the press release below, Liam Printer, Head of Languages at The Learning Curve Institute has called on The Government to reverse their proposal to abolish the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative.
“The initiative currently supports modern languages in over 550 schools nationally with a core team of just 6 people. They provide training, resources and school-based support as well as funding 300 visiting teachers who deliver the programme in schools nationwide. The amazing thing is that they manage to do all this within a budget of under €2 million, and not the €2.5 million erroneously quoted in the budget documents” commented Head of Languages at The LCI, Liam Printer.
Learning languages in the classroom
“I genuinely fail to understand how The Government seems to think that this will benefit the country in the long term. Over 14 years of expertise will be lost to the system. Many jobs now require candidates to possess a second language before they can even apply, this decision will put Irish people at a huge disadvantage as they try to compete for jobs with our fellow Europeans. The backward thinking will also result in over 300 more teachers on the live register at an estimated cost of €6,000,000 per annum in social welfare payments. It simply beggars belief that in our Nation’s first “jobs budget”, our leaders are cutting an incredibly beneficial programme for children that costs €2m per year to run only to replace it with a cost of €6m per year to the exchequer” continued Mr. Printer of The Learning Curve Institute.
As recently as October the Royal Irish Academy published their National Languages Strategy which called for the Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative to be integrated into the mainstream curriculum, as strongly recommended by the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (2005) and the Council of Europe Policy Profile (2008) document, rather than being limited to extra-curricular time and to a portion of schools.
“As a country Ireland is already years behind the Barcelona Agreement and the Lisbon Strategy, which called for systems to be in place to facilitate early language learning of at least two foreign languages by 2010. Just one month ago in November 2011, all EU countries, including Ireland, ratified recommendations to “step up their efforts” to implement the Barcelona Agreement. The momentum that has been built will come to a sudden and regrettable halt depriving Irish children of skills their European counterparts can take for granted,” concluded Liam Printer.
The LCI deliver FETAC accredited language programmes and Leaving Cert revision courses in French and Spanish across Ireland. For more information on all the language courses run by The Learning Curve Institute see www.thelearningcurve.ie or email info@thelearningcurve.ie
