A gaelscoil (plural: gaelscoileanna) is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas.
Students in the gaelscoileanna acquire the Irish language through language immersion, though they study the standard curriculum. Gaelscoileanna, unlike mainstream schools, have the reputation of producing competent Irish-language speakers.[1] English-medium schools, in contrast, produce relatively few fluent Irish speakers, despite the Irish language being an obligatory subject in the Republic of Ireland in both primary and secondary school. This has been attributed in part to the lack of Irish-language immersion programs.[2] The present government has promised reforms in curriculum and teaching training for Irish in English-medium schools.[3]
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Gaelscoileanna enjoy strong support among members of the urban professional class and are generally found in middle-class suburbs. They also exist in disadvantaged areas, though it has been claimed that in those areas they cater primarily for middle-class children from elsewhere.[4] Their success is due to effective (though limited) community support and an efficient administrative infrastructure. They are distinguished by being the product, not of state policy, but of a genuine community movement.
Gaelscoileanna have undergone a striking expansion over the last few decades, though there are now concerns that recent rules limiting the founding of new schools may affect Irish-medium education, especially when the demand is greater than the supply.[5]
In 1972 there were only 11 such schools at primary level and five at secondary level in the Republic. Now there are 172 at primary level and 39 at secondary level.[6] When similar schools from Northern Ireland are added, there are in total 298 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 72 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí).[7] These schools educate over 37,800 students, not counting around 4,000 children in Irish-medium preschools. Coláiste Feirste is the only second-level Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland.[8][9] There is now at least one gaelscoil in each of the 32 counties of Ireland[7] and several in some larger towns and cities. There are only nine counties nationally that do not have a secondary level Irish-medium school: Laois, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Down.
Gaelscoileanna have acquired a reputation for providing excellent academic results at a moderate cost. They have been described as a system of “positive social selection,” giving better than average access to tertiary education and the social and employment opportunities which follow. An analysis of “feeder” schools which send students on to tertiary level institutions shows that 22% of Irish-medium schools send all their students on to tertiary level, compared to 7% of English-medium schools.[10]
It has been argued that the bilingualism resulting from early acquisition of another language is of general intellectual benefit and helps children to learn a third or fourth language. Irish advocates of the immersion approach sometimes refer to studies showing that bilingual children have advantages over monoglot children in other subjects.[11]
| Ulster | Munster | Leinster | Connacht | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunscoileanna (Primary schools) | 45 | 45 | 66 | 18 | 174 |
| Meánscoileanna (Secondary schools) | 11 | 22 | 17 | 14 | 64 |
Three new second-level gaelscoileanna are to open in Ireland by 2014 - Coláiste Ghlór na Mara in Balbriggan, Coláiste Deisceart Átha Cliath in Dundrum and Gaelcholáiste Charraig Uí Leighin in Carragaline in Cork.
The function and future of the gaelscoileanna will be affected by the 20 Year Irish Language Strategy, published in November 2009. This emphasises the importance of offering all children in primary schools in Ireland the opportunity to experience partial immersion in the formative years of primary education. It calls for primary teachers to have additional immersion classes to improve their competence in the language. This would involve teaching some subjects such as Mathematics and Science in Irish.[12] Such a policy, if implemented effectively, would mean that the gaelscoileanna were no longer the only means of promoting bilingualism in schoolchildren.