Irish Gaelic medium.html |
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Six families in Belfast established a Gaeltacht area in Belfast in the late 1960s and opened Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in 1970 as the first Gaelic medium school in Northern Ireland, and in 1984 was granted the status of a voluntary maintained primary school. The first Naíscoil (Gaelic medium nursery school) opened in 1978.
Comhairle na Gaelscolaiochta [1]established by the Minister of Education in 2000 to develop Gaelic medium education Gaelic pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there are Gaelic language secondary schools known as Méanscoileanna in Belfast, Armagh, and Derry.
In the academic year 2004-5, 3,713 children were enrolled in Gaelic medium education:
- 44 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with 855 pupils
- 32 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with 2,328 pupils
- 2 secondary schools and a post-primary unit with 530 pupils.
The British Council administers a scheme to recruit Gaelic language assistants for English medium schools in Northern Ireland [1].
Examinations in Irish Gaelic are gaining in popularity among school-age and adult students. In 2004, there were 333 entries for A-Level examinations in Irish Gaelic and 2,630 for GCSE.