LEARNING a modern language should enable the learner to gain access to the culture, literature and way of life of the people whose native language it is. It should also enable the learner to engage in first-hand contact with those people for personal, social, cultural, economic and other reasons.

Where Irish is concerned it has to be accepted that there is no material or practical need to know the language, apart from the necessity to comply with artificial requirements such as those that exist in the area of education and in the conditions affecting recruitment to certain posts.

Because of this, the learning of the Irish language in school is very often approached without any of the normal motivation that is applied to the learning of other subjects.

It is necessary, in the absence of that motivation, to cultivate the learner's interest with great sensitivity. It is also important to adopt a common sense approach to the content of the course, to teaching methods and to assessment.

The accessibility of a programme is a major consideration as far as a student's choice of level is concerned. Is it not a matter for concern then that the proportion of students taking higher-level Irish is substantially below the proportion taking the higher-level in English and other comparable subjects? Is it not also a matter for concern that, despite the limited, selective numbers taking higher-level Irish, the percentage attaining Grade A is depressingly small?

Does this mean that students' standards in Irish are far lower than in other subjects and, if so why? Or can it be that the programme and examination are setting over-ambitious goals?

The real problem is the failure to distinguish between those whose first language is Irish or who are bilingual, and those who learn Irish as a school subject.

It is disingenuous and damaging to go on ignoring the fact that competition for good grades in higher level Irish is unfair. On the one hand there are native speakers, bilinguals and also students who have pursued their studies through the medium of Irish and for whom the language is second nature. On the other hand there are bright, enthusiastic students whose contact with Irish is generally limited to the Irish class. Normally there should be different courses and examinations to cater for such diversity.

Nowhere is the competition more unfair than in the oral examination. Here native speakers compute with students whose exposure to Irish, limited as it is to the Irish class, could not possibly enable, them to achieve a high degree of proficiency in the spoken language.

The oral examination was introduced when there were fewer and smaller secondary schools catering for only a small segment of society. Many of them were fully or partially Irish-medium schools. Today, except in a tiny number of Irish-medium schools, Irish has been demoted from a central position to that of a subject which has to struggle for survival in a crowded curriculum.

Sadly the Leaving Certificate oral examination remains effectively unchanged in thrust, format and application despite the virtual revolution that has taken place in the schools and the diversity of the student population nowadays.

There appears to be a refusal to accept the reality that, in order to attain confidence and competent fluency in a spoken language, it is necessary to live that language for a considerable length of time.

Native speakers of Irish and those whose education is mediated through Irish have this essential experience. Others, if they can afford it, resort to special tuition or periods in the Gaeltacht in order to develop their oral skills. Realising the futility of the situation, big numbers of students vote with their feet and opt out of Irish except for token compliance with regulations.

Is it not a matter for great regret that students who begin by being favourably disposed towards Irish are demotivated by a programme and examination which discriminate against them by prescribing goals which, give the reality of the situation of Irish in most schools, are virtually unattainable?

Is it not a matter for dismay that, instead of coming to terms with reality by recognising the existence of two distinct categories of students and catering appropriately for each, the problems for the disadvantaged category are being compounded by the decision to raise the proportion of marks that are to be allocated to the apparently sacrosanct oral examination?