Actas da - Xunta de Galicia

— 126 —
Pádraig Ó Riagáin
curriculum in the late sixties, a decision was taken to remove the compulsory
requirement to pass Irish as a subject in all State examinations. These policy
and curricular changes have occurred within the context of broader shifts in
educational policy which also had less direct, but significant, consequences.
The impact of the education system was conditioned by the linkages between
the different elements of the system itself and the labour market. Until recent
decades, its influence on bilingual patterns was constrained by the low
participation rates in post-primary education and the relatively weak and shortlived
attempt to promote immersion education as the national norm (APC
1986).
It is clear, from the evidence just presented, that there has been a decline in
recent years in the levels of ability among post-primary pupils. The decline in
the percentage of pupils receiving an all-Irish education has been rapid. More
significantly, perhaps, increasing percentages of candidates in State
examinations either fail in Irish or do not present themselves for examination in
the subject at all. Currently, for example, over 25% of Leaving Certificate
candidates do not take or fail the Irish examinations. The corresponding
proportion in 1970 was around 15 per cent. The position is even worse if the
statistics for boys is considered separately.
While it is true that there has been an increase in the proportion of all young
people (the total numbers in successive age cohorts) receiving some
certification in Irish at the post-primary stage, this has been due exclusively to
the increasing rates of educational participation since the 1960s. What has been
happening is that declining performance in Irish examinations is being
concealed by the impact of the greater numbers coming into second-level
schools. However, now that the major expansion in post-primary education
participation has run its course, the continued reliance on current schooling
procedures as a means of generating competence in Irish places the language in
a very vulnerable position.
The trends cannot be explained simply by reference to the increases in the
numbers of low-ability pupils entering the second level as a result of the
introduction of free post-primary education. Declining performance in Irish
examinations is not confined to the academically weaker pupils. Rather, pupils
in general now adopt a very calculating attitude towards school subjects. The
manner in which Irish is brought into this calculation has had serious
implications for the language. The process of subject selection is dictated by a
complex set of considerations which include the removal of the Irish
requirement in State examinations, the declining saliency of the language for
career purposes, the pressure to secure University entrance points and the
expansion of higher education opportunities outside the University sector.