Highlands Council stops teaching of Gaidhlig - 10-03-97

See also:

Gaelic Secondary Education threatened
East Kilbride GMU threatened

Inspite of overwhelming opposition, the Highlands Council has gone ahead with a possibly fatal attack on the teaching of Scotland's native language.

 The Scottish Highlands area is the heartland of the Scottish Gaelic tradition. As would be expected, demand for the language is high and so there are several Gaelic Medium Units attached to schools where children who are Gaidhlig speakers can learn through their own language.

 In addition, English speaking children were able to receive Gaidhlig lessons from itinerant teachers. The Highlands Council, who are responsible for education in the region, decided to scrap five teaching posts from the Gaighlig language programme. This will effectively deprive the majority of schoolchildren in the highlands region from any exposure to their native language in the school environment.

 This potential death-blow to the language in the Highlands (the other strong-hold being the Scottish Islands) comes hot on the heals of the closure of the Peterhead GMU and the attempted closure of the East Kilbride GMU. Both these incidents incurred substantial opposition and it would appear that, in an attempt to bulldoze the proposal through, the Highlands Council made the move with the absolute minimum of notice and no publicity. Nonetheless, the word got out and with a mere two days before the fateful meeting of the Education Committee of the Council, the Council's offices were deluged with letters, faxes and 'phone calls of opposition. One source has it that of the twelve man committee, only one opposed the job losses.

 Despite this, the job losses went ahead but the Education Committee was reportedly very "rattled" by the scale of opposition. The Celtic League's letter is reproduced below: 

 Dear Mrs. MacIver,

 The Executive Committee of The Celtic League is extremely concerned to learn that it is the intention of the Highlands Council to effectively withdraw the teaching of Gaelic from its schools by dismissing five teachers from the Gaidhlig teaching programme.

 This intention, following so closely on the closure of the Peterhead GMU and the near loss of the East Kilbride GMU, gives the impression that Scottish regional Councils have got together to declare "open season" on the Gaelic language. Such action could be more forgivable if there was no demand for the teaching of Gaidhlig but this is clearly not the case. The continued success of the Gaidhlig pre-school playgroups run by CNSA show the wish of a huge number of parents to give their children a choice of languages and that there are sufficient Gaidhlig speaking children to people the GMUs throughout Scotland is proof positive of the overwhelming commitment of both parents and children to the future of the Gaidhlig language.

 Nor is the fact that most children arriving at primary school are English mongolots an indication of any lack of desire on their own part to speak the language that is their birth-right: In too many cases this situation is the result of lack of provision of the facilities to acquire a knowledge of the language at an earlier age.

 Despite being regarded as the "mother country" of the three Gaelic languages, Ireland has learnt a lot from the example set by Scottish Gaidhlig speakers in having their language decline not only stabilised but reversed. It would appear that it is the intention of the Highland Council to severely undermine the hard work of decades.

 The retention of Gaidhlig as a living language is most certainly not the preserve of a few extremists and I would draw the Committee's attention to various UN conventions and charters on linguistic rights and ethnic diversity. Most particularly, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, promulgated in Barcelona in June of last year and currently in the hands of UNESCO for transcription into a UN Charter is worthy of consideration.

 Without doubt, "budgetary considerations" will be cited as the reason for this but, as has been shown to be the case on too many previous occassions, it is felt more likely that the Gaidhlig language has been singled out as an easy target. If the trend of the past year in Scottish Education is followed it is quite possible that, in the next century, there will be no Gaidhlig language except in museums. Should this be the case, it will doubtless be claimed that it "simply died out". This letter will be available on file, however, to show whether of not the Highlands Council helped it on its way.

 The Celtic League most importantly asks, therefore, that this matter be treated with the gravity it deserves and the Gaidhlig language, one of the few identifiable elements of Scottish culture to have survived from the previous millenium, be given a fair chance of survival into the next.

 Yours faithfully,

 Mark Kermode,
Assitant General Scretary.

League supports Kilbride Gaelic Medium Unit - 22-02-97

 Dear Sir,

 I write to express the Celtic League's concern at rumours that the East Kilbride Gaelic medium unit is under threat of phased closure.

 I understand, from our Scottish branch secretary, that this unit is one of the most successful and largest Gaelic medium units in Scotland.

 Obviously we appreciate that there are financial constraints on all budgets at the present time. However, to apply cuts in this area will undoubtedly do critical damage to the Gaelic medium education programme.

 I would welcome clarification from you on this situation at your earliest convenience. Obviously if any threat to the unit is cost driven then it would be our intention to write to the Secretary of State for Scotland and seek his urgent intervention in this matter.

 The overall thrust of Gaelic and Celtic languages education has been very positive in recent years. The availability as part of the regular curriculum of education through the National language is now accessible in Scotland, Ireland, Mann, Cymru, Cornwall and Brittany. In the light of this it would be unfortunate if this process was reversed in your area.

 I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

 Yours faithfullly.

 J.B. Moffatt
General Secretary, Celtic League.

Gaelic Medium Secondary Education Under Threat - 16-06-96

 After two years of uncertainty, and despite the opposition of all the Gaelic groups which he consulted on the matter, Forsyth has decided to accept the inspectorate's recommendation against the expansion of Gaelic education to secondary level. Instead of the teaching of a wide range of subjects through the medium of Gaelic, there are to be tokenistic and ghettoistic Gaelic medium modules about Gaelic culture - probably only around an hour a week. Forsyth's response did however provide two welcome developments: an increase of £200,000 per year in the Government Specific Grant for Gaelic and the development of a new national Gaelic resource centre.

 Forsyth's report has been universally condemned by the Gaelic movement who believe that Gaelic medium secondary education is an absolute right which Forsyth has no right to withhold. While the government have said that the decision was caused by "significant practical difficulties", there can be little doubt that the real reason has been the desire to save money. If it was not practical to teach through Gaelic then Gaelic nursery, primary and further education would not be available. The government already supports Welsh high schools and has recently announced that it is to support the Irish medium high school Meanscoil Feirste in the six counties. Gaelic deserves equal treatment.

 There are currently around 2500 children in Gaelic playgroups, 1500 in primary school units and 130 in high school units. To ensure that Gaelic medium secondary education remains available to them, it is important that as many people as possible write to newspapers, MPs, MEPs and to Forsyth demanding that he does not stop Gaelic medium secondary education. More importantly than this, it is vital that people continue to support the existing playgroups and primary units. The more children that enroll in Gaelic medium education, the more difficult it will be for "Mental Mickey" Forsyth to deny them high school units.

 Write to:

 Michael Forsyth,
Sectetary of State for Scotland,
The Scottish Office,
St.Andrew's House,
Edinburgh,
Alba / Scotland.