Irish has replaced French as the second most popular language at A-level in Northern Ireland, according to a new report on language trends in Northern schools.
This is due to the dramatic decline in enrolments in A-level French since the mid-90s rather than a surge in popularity in Irish, with its numbers only increasing slightly over the same time period.
The Language Trends Northern Ireland report, which was published on Tuesday by the British Council, surveyed over 50 per cent of post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, 10.5 per cent of primaries and more than 1,150 Year 9 pupils, aged 12-13.
The research was carried out by Dr Ian Collen, Director of the Northern Ireland Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (NICILT) at Queen’s University Belfast, and is the third in a series of reports by the British Council.
In Northern Ireland, Irish is not a compulsory part of the curriculum, but can be offered by schools as one of their language options, with Spanish and French the most popular subjects.
According to the report, at Key Stage 3 – age 11-14 – Irish is offered in 35 per cent of schools, mainly Maintained schools and a “very small number” of integrated schools.
At GCSE, state exams typically taken around age 16, the report found the number of pupils studying Irish has remained relatively stable since 2007, where it is the third most popular language choice, with almost 2,000 students taking GCSE Irish in 2022, down from a peak of 2,748 candidates in 2007.
Spanish overtook French as the most popular GCSE language in Northern Ireland in 2021, with the figures also demonstrating the decline of French at GCSE, falling from 13,099 entries in 2002 to 3,151 in 2022, a decline of 76 per cent.
In German, the decline at GCSE level was almost 50 per cent, from 1,390 entries in 2022 to 706 in 2022.
However, the report noted that while the growth in Spanish “in no way compensates for the significant decline in French over the past twenty years ... figures seem to be stabilising across the languages.”
At Key Stage 3, up to age 14, French remains the most widely taught language, followed by Spanish, Irish and then German.
The Irish-medium education sector is “growing”, with 4,661 pupils at 28 Irish-medium primary schools and seven Irish-medium units within primary schools in the school year 2021/22, compared to 2,365 pupils learning through Irish in 2005/06.
Overall, the report found that decline in language learning has “plateaued” at post-primary level and language learning in schools in Northern Ireland was “slowly recovering from the pandemic.”
Earlier research by the British Council in 2021 revealed language lessons were “hardest hit” during Covid-19.
However, most pupils do not see languages being part of their future career, with just 14.2 per cent of those surveyed expressing any likelihood of using languages in the future.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Dr Collen said that “whilst other UK jurisdictions and Ireland are investing in language learning, there is an urgent need to start similar endeavours in Northern Ireland to ensure we have a multilingual workforce ready to grow our economy.
“It would be timely to overhaul curriculum content and assessment of languages to better reflect the lives of young people today, and offer appropriate vocational qualifications in languages through progression pathways for all learners.”
