Quotas for Irish language pupils 'counter-productive and wrong' says former DUP education minister

Lord Weir was speaking in the wake of news that the Department of Communities plans to release its ‘Irish Language Strategy’ and ‘Ulster-Scots Language, Heritage and Culture Strategy’ by the end of March 2024.

These strategies set out objectives for the next 20 years and how they will be achieved.

Last February two panels of “experts” – convened by the department – produced an overview of what these Irish and Ulster-Scots strategies should contain once they are published.

Some of their ideas were as follows:

• That 500,000 people should “have knowledge of Irish” by 2042 (roughly a quarter of the province’s population);

• That “10% of the wider school population” be enrolled in Irish-language schools by 2042;

• That three research and educational bodies should be created: The Ulster-Scots Research Institute, The Ulster-Scots College, and the Language Institution;

• That “a flagship Ulster-Scots cultural hub in Belfast” be set up;

• And that “each council should commission the collation of all Ulster-Scots place names within its district and from this collation, a rolling programme of heritage signs be placed”.

Whether the final strategies will mirror those “expert” recommendations is unknown as yet.

But Lord Weir told the News Letter that, when it comes to such things as quotas for pupils in Irish language schools: “The idea behind any strategy should be to facilitate people making free choices.

"So I think people setting targets of that nature is both counterproductive and wrong, but also probably very unrealistic.

"If there’s an attempt to pursue a language with a sense of zealotry, as opposed to simply facilitating in a reasonable fashion what people want, I think that’s likely to be something that’s not likely to be not really achievable – and I’m not sure how it fits in with public resources either.

"At the moment I think there’s roughly 2% of the school population in the Irish medium sector.

"No-one is trying to deny anybody… that’s parental choice.

"But I’m not sure how you then force a choice, and try to get what’d be a five-or-six-fold increase in terms of the people who are studying that instead of the natural inclination people have in relation to it.”

• IRISH LANGUAGE ACT HAS ALREADY CHANGED THE LAW •

Northern Ireland already has an Irish language / Ulster-Scots act in the form of the Identity & Language (NI) Act 2022 on Northern Ireland from Westminster.

It was passed by the Tory government in December 2022, and is separate from the language strategies described above.

This meant the following things:

• An Office of Identity and Cultural Expression must be created (which will, amongst other things, “promote awareness of the national and cultural identity principles and monitor and encourage compliance by public authorities”);

• The act provides for “the official recognition of the status of the Irish language in Northern Ireland”;

• It makes provision for the appointment of an Irish Language Commissioner;

• It also makes provision for the appointment of a “Commissioner for the Ulster Scots and the Ulster British Tradition”;

• And it requires the “Northern Ireland Department of Education to encourage and facilitate the use and understanding of Ulster Scots in the education system”.

The department’s dual strategies, however, are separate to this law.

They are like roadmaps stating what the government wants to achieve over the next 20 years, and how it is going to achieve it.