Agus freagairt le Artair:
Dear Sir
Not wishing to denigrate the task facing our local authority, it is highly dubious for Barry Hutchison of Lochyside to assert, without evidence, that The Highland Council’s budget is being ‘stretched’ to ‘fund Gaelic resources’ to the alleged detriment of other services. Whatever is behind the need for The H
ighland Council to find savings of £29m over the next two years, it cannot be the authority’s spend on Gaelic.
The Highland Council spends less than a quarter of 1% of its budget on Gaelic, while it serves an area where 6.7% of the population speaks Gaelic. The Highland Council collects at least £5.7m in Council Tax from Gaelic speakers which surely gives Gaelic speakers the right to expect some of that (their) money to be spent on Gaelic services.
According to its own figures, the Council spends a total of around £4m on Gaelic. But that figure is misleading since the majority of that spend is on education which the Council would have a statutory duty to provide in English, in order to educate the children currently in Gaelic medium education were that option withdrawn.
It is the case that the cost of educating a child in English across The Highland Council area is around £3,300 while the cost of educating a child in Gaelic is only £2,600. Not included in those figures is the Scottish Government’s Specific Grant for Gaelic Education - £945k that would not be available to The Highland Council for any other purpose and which reduces even further the already favourable cost of educating a pupil in Gaelic.
When presented with all the available evidence the previous administration in the Council confirmed that there are no additional costs incurred by The Highland Council in providing Gaelic medium education. Following the logic of the figures available, if I were one for making mischief, I could suggest The Highland Council would save £13m if it educated all children in Gaelic!
Like Barry Hutchison, I visit lots of schools. I don’t see classrooms where Gaelic is taught overflowing with technology and resources not available to pupils in English education. The reverse would seem to be the case with significantly fewer resources available in Gaelic than in English, so perhaps he would like to prove me wrong by providing some evidence for his claim.
Then there’s Mr Hutchison’s point about the value of teaching Gaelic versus other languages. The last time I looked French, German and other languages were still being taught in Scottish schools, free of the charge, the same as all other subjects that lead to examinations. Whether he likes it or not, there is a growing body of evidence that shows Gaelic medium education is of high quality and enables children to learn other languages more easily. As Mr Hutchison points out, perhaps any bilingual education might deliver the same outcome, but why should Highland children not have the opportunity to learn their own language, and about their own culture, especially when that is what their parents want?
After all, by virtue of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, Gaelic is an official language of Scotland, unlike any of the other languages mentioned. The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 states that: “… pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents." The notion that Gaelic should be dropped (or lessons paid for by parents) in favour of teaching Mandarin, French, German or Russian in Scotland, against parental wishes, is unlawful.
Mt Hutchison’s ignorance of the purpose of Gaelic development is quite breathtaking for one with such seemingly formed opinions on the matter and it would be better if he desisted from opining on it further until such time as he acquaints himself with it, how it is funded, the impact funding Gaelic has (or not) on other council services, not to mention the many positive outcomes from the investment in Gaelic that touch the lives of us all in the Highlands.
Finally, while he doesn’t want to get started on the road signs, I would just point out to Mr Hutchison that it is policy to replace signs with bilingual ones only when they need replaced in any case. Therefore, any additional costs are negligible. Only this week research for Transport Scotland confirmed that bilingual signs do not cause accidents so the case against them is swiftly diminishing. I hope we see them all over the Highlands to reaffirm the Gaelic heritage of the area and to give us all an insight into the original names associated with Highland places prior to their anglicisation.
— in Fort William, Scotland.