Polish to be taught to pupils aged four in Northern Ireland
Friday, 17 July 2009
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Children as young as four will be taught Polish in Northern Ireland primary schools from September, it was revealed yesterday.
Because of the numbers of Polish families who have moved to the province and 1,700 Polish children in schools, the language was added to the Spanish and Irish already on offer.
So far 25 schools have signed up to have a tutor provided for their Primary 1-4 classes under a scheme funded by the Department of Education. During the last school year 247 primary schools had regular Spanish lessons and 76 Irish lessons.
News of the expansion of the languages programme, and a sports programme running alongside it, was given by Education Minister Caitriona Ruane in her ‘end of term report'.
The aim of the language programme is to offer an enjoyable experience of language learning for the youngest pupils with a view to encouraging more to continue at post-primary level.
The minister said: “Since the programme began we have made around £1.5m available and during the last school year we had 323 schools and around 13,000 children participating every week.”
Ms Ruane said Irish was the native tongue and in recent years there had been a welcome increase in the number of people choosing to learn it.
Spanish was offered as it was the second most widely spoken and first language of many countries around the world.
“Due to the increase in newcomer children from Poland we will offer Polish lessons to primary schools from September.”
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44 Comments
I agree with dreamonic; all children should be offered home language support in school, provided their parents are doing their part and ensuring the language is fluent by apeaking it at all times in the home. What a gift to Ulster to have citizens fluent and literate in Polish/ Chinese/ Urdu ...whatever!
Posted by Deirdre | 19.07.09, 11:55 GMT
As a language tutor myself, I love the idea of introducing children to a new language from a young age but c'mon...
In this economic climate it will only fuel resentment towards Polish community in NI. Someone on the hill had this 'brilliant' idea that they can fill their time with, instead of dealing with serious problems like native speakers of English leaving schools practically illiterate. And who is Joe Bloggs going to blame? Well, not hard to guess. Polish nationals who had nothing to do with this 'brilliant' idea.
NI becomes a bit like England where self-proclaimed PC good-doers are doing more damage to minorities than BNP. If Ruane really wants to help improve relations between local and Polish children she'd better spend money on teaching them all proper English!
Posted by Marta | 19.07.09, 00:10 GMT
Witcher (see further down) - you are a credit, both to yourself in having learnt English and also to your forefathers, without whose sacrifices we may all now be speaking no other language but German!
I don't imagine Irish would have survived, either.
Posted by Terry2 | 18.07.09, 18:17 GMT
Cut backs in our classes, larger class sizes...when are we going to see an end of 'new initivitives' and actually see what money their is put into teaching the basics in our Primary Schools. I'm wondering what comes next!!!!
Posted by getting more concerned | 18.07.09, 08:55 GMT
I am in Thailand at the moment and a few days ago I was listening to one of the English hour news broadcasts out here. They did one report on the importance of being able to speak and write English. Teaching English here is quite a good business and China also wants native English language teachers. We should be concentrating on teaching our children English and as a second language now maybe Chinesse.
Posted by James | 18.07.09, 01:28 GMT
Does anyone else see the irony of so many unionists screaming about
The necessity of immigrants learning the native tongue of their new
Country? Does this mean they all want Irish to be compulsory in all
NI schools?
Posted by Fergal MacShane | 18.07.09, 00:00 GMT
first irish (backwards you go) now Ruane is trying to shove polish down your throats. yeahhh for republicanism who couldnt run a race never mind a country. in case you havent noticed paul the ROI rejects your "nationalism" and will soon reject your church education also. as for the six counties they are and will remain british. She (Ruanne)is all about wasting the tax payers money, just like gerry and martin. i mean they all take the queens shilling dont they.lmao
Posted by billy | 17.07.09, 23:36 GMT
Catrione Ruane needs her head examined. Money is going to be wasted teaching Polish when there are children that need classroom assistants to help them in their day to day life together with special needs. There are so many cut backs that some children are pushed aside. How dare Dreamonic call people from NI 'Ignorant Bigots' - How dare she. Who really cares where her children are taught. The only one ignorant here is her with uncalled for comments...mind your own business.. Even the Polish person on this page thinks its a waste of time.
Posted by Hugh Jarce | 17.07.09, 22:54 GMT
Ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ha ha ha Poland say's it will also start teaching it's kids Polish.
Posted by d.patterson | 17.07.09, 22:36 GMT
What about Sign Language? Is the deaf and hard-of-hearing community in school getting proper services? Why not teach sign language to the school population so the deaf and hard-of-hearing have more opportunity to interact in their language?
I also agree with the comments from Terry2 re the dyslexic children.... these decision makers seem to live in another world.
Posted by Colm McFeely | 17.07.09, 21:30 GMT
Let's face it ... it's only a smokescreen to take the bad look off pouring money into Irish.
I agree that it's good for children to learn a second language but let's make it useful - Spanish or French perhaps. If it has to be a dead language Latin would be my choice.
Dreamonic ... I sense you're not entirely happy, n'est ce pas?
Posted by perry | 17.07.09, 21:15 GMT
My nieces aged 13 and 8 have been taught Japanese, one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, from they were tiny (mother is Japanese) with the result that they now speak fluent Japanese with no effort at all because kids that age soak up information like sponges. They do not even realise they are being taught. Therefore, considering my own poor efforts from the ages of 11 to 15 to learn French and German at Grammar school (oops shouldn't have mentioning the G word) teaching kids another language from a younger age is a great idea. However, Polish I am sorry to say is not that language. From an educational and business point of view the major European languages are French, German and Spanish so it should be one of these.
Posted by Stephen | 17.07.09, 21:11 GMT
I'm glad to see that Ruane and her colleagues have so much money to waste on fripperies like this...Maybe we're not in a recession after all??
Posted by Karyn | 17.07.09, 18:35 GMT
The item was on page 14 and yet, on page 20 it was reported that 260 dyslexic children are having to wait for class support due to "lack of school resources".
No wonder.
Posted by Terry2 | 17.07.09, 16:45 GMT
polish???? hello!!! do you need polish for what??? why not French,Italian, Gaelic????
any other way to waste public,ours, money???
Respect for the Irish culture!!!!!
Posted by Leo | 17.07.09, 16:38 GMT
this is the most ridiculous idea ruane has came up with yet..get her out before she destroys our education system any more than she already has...
Posted by Jane | 17.07.09, 15:54 GMT
Has this goverment gone mad next it will be Pakistani and maybe a little Indian for good measure and maybe a little bit of Russian.Where is all the money coming from?
Posted by william cameron | 17.07.09, 15:47 GMT
Ignore the unionists Caitriona the nationalist community supports you in your quest to transform our education system.
If they don't like how the six counties operates these days they can go back to scotland.
Posted by paul | 17.07.09, 15:08 GMT
If it's choice - that's fine. If it's going to be compulsory to all pupils - that's stupid. Some idiot down South already wanted to make Polish a third national language of ROI. Don't go nuts! I'm Polish and I have some respect, I need to speak English and I wouldn't dare to expect anyone to speak Polish... Move that £1.5M to fight with hate-crime!
Posted by Pawel | 17.07.09, 14:28 GMT
Shouldn't this money be spent on teaching basic English grammar and pronunciation???!!! Strong NI accents and colloquialisms have to be the most unattractive in the world. I'd rather listen to someone scraping their nails on a blackboard.
Posted by I hate spides | 17.07.09, 14:19 GMT
44 Comments