Swinney says failte to a new Gaelic school in Glasgow
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The new school will provide Gaelic-medium education (GME) and is expected to open in the Cartvale area of the city at a cost of £1.9 million. Nearly 900 pupils are enrolled in Glasgow’s two existing GME schools at Glendale and Berkeley Street, both of which are now at capacity.
The plans for the new school were announced dur- ing a Holyrood debate on the National Gaelic Language Plan 2018-23.
The Education Secretary said the government would work towards opening other Gaelic schools in Edinburgh and Inverness and ensure support was put in place for parental wishes for similar establishments in Oban and Dingwall.
Glasgow City Council dropped a proposal for a third Gaelic school at the former Gowanbank Primary in Nitshill last year after 75 per cent of consultation responses were against the idea. At that time, council education officers ruled out using the former Cartvale Secondary School building as the pupils with social and emotional difficulties it catered for were in the process of moving to new schools.
Mr Swinney said: “We have an opportunity to build on the success of recent years and to ensure a faster rate of progress in the expansion of Gaelic education across Scotland.”
Funding for the school will come from the Gaelic Capital Fund, which was set up in 2008.
The number of people recorded as being able to speak, read, write and/or understand Gaelic in the 2011 census was 87,000. Of these, the total number of people who speak Gaelic was 58,000.
Although use of the language has been in decline, the most recent data shows an increase of 10 per cent in the number of Gaelic speakers below the age of 15, and a 15 per cent increase in the 16 to 29 age group.
MSPS last night unanimously backed a government motionwelcomingthenational Gaelic Language Plan.
A Conservative amendment stressing that ministers must ensure sufficient numbers of Gaelic-speaking teachers was also agreed, as was a Labour amendment suggesting that the language should be encouraged to grow to the point where it is “normalised”.