ETBI Journal of Education - Vol 2:2 November 2020 (Irish-medium Education)

ETBI Journal of Education November 2020
Laustsen, 2006; Gill, 2017; Gill, 2018; Mac Pháidín,
2004, 2008; Solstat, 1994; TUI, 2020). Central to
this is the provision of sustainable primary and
post-primary level education; if an island loses
its primary school, young families are quickly
forced to abandon the island, with all the negative
consequences which follow regarding the make
up of the island community, the island population
and the future of the island as a living community
(Egelund & Laustsen, 2006; Gill, 2017; Mac
Pháidín, 2004; Solstat,1994). What often results
is a process of gentrification, i.e. that the only
people left on the island are those who possess
holiday homes (Egelund & Laustsen, 2006; Gill,
2017).
COMMUNITY ACTIVATION
The implementation of the Gaeltacht Act (2012)
caused schools and communities to engage
productively with each other. The DES Gaeltacht
Education Policy (2016), a policy welcomed by the
ETB sector, helped island school communities and
the general island community to interact formally
with each other, recognising the existential
requirement for networked cooperation (ETBI,
2016; Gill, 2018; GRETB, 2017; Mac Pháidín,
2018). Island schools need to engage with the
community of the island itself as well as engaging
with the state system.
Professor Peter Gill, from the University of
Gävle in Sweden, a country with 26 inhabited
islands and schools on 10 of them, has conducted
research into island education. In Finland, Gill
(2017) reports on research by Solstad (1994),
which states that only 50% of schools in that
country are ‘community-active’ schools, meaning
the local community and school have strong links
with each other. According to Gill, the remaining
non community-active schools and the islands
on which they are situated are at elevated risk
of accelerated decline. The integrated approach
of the GRETB and DETB Gaeltacht immersion
colleges have confirmed that the five post-primary
schools on islands off the Galway and Donegal
coast respectively are ‘community-active schools’
(GRETB, 2017; Mc Hugh, 2017; Oireachtas
Éireann, 2018).
EDUCATION ON AN ISLAND – A UNIQUE
EXPERIENCE
When the ETB schools succeeded in keeping their
island students at home and accommodate them
locally, it was noted that the exchequer had, up
to that point, funded the islands’ teenagers when
they were living with families on the mainland
for the purposes of completing upper secondary
education, culminating with Leaving Certificate
examinations (Mac Pháidín, 2004). This process
was innovatively reversed with the establishment
of the Scheme for Learners of Irish – a Year on
an Island, in 2007. The scheme, sponsored by
the Department of Culture, Heritage and the
Gaeltacht, and organised by GRETB between
Coláiste Naomh Éinne, Coláiste Naomh Eoin
and Coláiste Ghobnait on all three Aran Islands,
facilitated up to 10 students from the mainland to
come to each of the three island schools to spend
a school year learning Irish with full financing
provided for accommodation, up to a value of
€6,000 per pupil. https://colaisteghobnait.com/
apply/
YEAR ON AN ISLAND SCHEME – THE STUDENT
EXPERIENCE
Scheme students stay with a family on the island
for the school year and therefore their experience
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