More teachers should be given the opportunity to teach Gaelic in Scottish schools and be given professional recognition for doing so, according to the chairman of Bord na Gaidhlig, Matthew MacIver, who is also chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
He told the Gaelic Learners in the Primary School (GLPS) conference at Stirling University: “The survival of Gaelic no longer just depends on the native speaker; it also depends on the learner. Bord na Gaidhlig has been charged with increasing the number of Gaelic speakers and much of that increase will depend on how much we motivate and support Gaelic learners. With this in mind, I see GLPS as being of huge significance in the renaissance of the language.
“I see GLPS as a course that has enormous potential in terms of undergraduate students as well as teachers and I believe that the authorities and the universities have to engage in a very serious conversation about the future development of GLPS.”
Bord na Gaidhlig is the statutory Gaelic Development Agency, established under the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 to promote Gaelic here and abroad. The Act requires the Bord to prepare a national plan for Gaelic with a strategic approach to the development of the language and its culture.
- www.bord-na-gaidhlig.org.uk.
