Record numbers of students did not sit the Irish exam in the Leaving Cert this year, prompting concern among campaigners over the status of the language at school.
While almost 61,000 students received their Leaving Cert results on Friday, 13,695 or 23 per cent of candidates were not registered for Irish exams.
The proportion of students not sitting Irish exams has been climbing steadily since 2018 when the equivalent figure was at 15 per cent. Irish is mandatory at second level, however, there is no obligation to sit the Leaving Cert exam.
The bulk of candidates who do not sit the exam are typically students who have received exemptions to study Irish on the basis of learning difficulties or having been educated for a time outside the State. In addition, there are students who decide to focus on other exams in the hope of maximising their grades or who may be taking on one or two subjects.
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Pádraig Ó Duibhir, professor emeritus at DCU and former school principal, said the overall trend in numbers sitting the exam were “going in the wrong way”.
“It is likely that the biggest factor behind the increase is the number of exemptions,” he said. “They have been growing ever since the Department of Education relaxed the rules in 2019 and placed the burden on school principals [on whether to award them].”
Latest official figures show the proportion of students at second level with exemptions has increased from 9.4 per cent in 2019 to 10.5 per cent in 2022.
Prof Ó Duibhir said there was “no such thing as a language learning disability” and called on policymakers to ensure our education system was more inclusive of learners with learning difficulties.
“For example, if a student has dyslexia, the emphasis should be on oral language and students hearing and speaking it, rather than having an emphasis on writing and reading.”
He added: “If left unchecked [rise in numbers with Irish exemptions], people will use this as evidence to show we need to make Irish optional for the Leaving Cert. We only need to look across the water to the UK to see how, if you make the study of languages optional, the numbers will fall off a cliff.”
Earlier this year, an Oireachtas committee called on Minister for Education Norma Foley to scrap the system that allows Irish exemptions on the basis that it was “not fit for purpose” and was harming the education system.
The joint committee on the Irish language and Gaeltacht said students experiencing difficulties with Irish should be allocated additional resources and supports before exemptions were considered.
The Dyslexia Association of Ireland, however, said the report demonstrated “a fundamental lack of understanding” about the needs of dyslexic students, and a lack of awareness of the legal requirements to make reasonable adjustments to meet their needs.
Ms Foley has previously defended the system of Irish exemptions and pointed out that a very large majority of Leaving Cert students continued to choose to take the exam and almost half of those did so at higher level. She has pointed to guidelines for schools which highlight the need to support pupils and students with special educational needs in language learning.
It is only after a two-year intervention that an adjudication will be made by school management as to whether a student should receive an exemption. She has also said there were exemptions for languages in other countries, such as the UK, Poland and Italy.
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