Hansard

Tomorrow night in Skye, I will attend a Burns supper that will be held in Gaelic. I will give members a wee preview:

Tha biadh aig cuid 's gun aca càil,
Tha càil aig cuid 's gun aca biadh,
Ach againne, tha biadh 's slàint',
Moladh mar sin a bhith don Triath.

That was the "Selkirk Grace" in Gaelic. The supper will be a very enjoyable event.

I welcome the Government's Gaelic language plan. In developing Gaelic, confidence is paramount. That is what the Gaelic plan and all the other measures are about—developing the confidence of native speakers, learners, children and communities. In the past, we have been held back by the lack of confidence among native speakers, many of whom were not literate in Gaelic. When they came across a pushy semi-literate learner asking them all sorts of questions about the genitive case and so on and so forth, they did not want to know. That was a real problem. The situation is changing a bit, but it needs to change even more. That is why the Gaelic plans are so important. The other measures that we are taking, such as Gaelic road signs, are also important, so that people see the language out there and see that it is part of mainstream life in Scotland, certainly in the Gàidhealtachd areas.

I am a fairly long-time learner of Gaelic, having gone to night school and to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig for various one and two-week courses. Eventually, I did a full year at Inverness College, the cùrsa comais, and developed reasonably good Gaelic. However, I am still not fully fluent. The problem in Inverness is that the course closed two or three years ago. Parents are sending their children to the new bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis—the new Gaelic primary school in Inverness. My daughter sent her daughter—my granddaughter—to the Gaelic-medium unit in Inverness, while she did a two-year full-time course at Inverness College, with the aim of being able to help her daughter with her homework when she came home from school. That worked very well. My daughter is now pretty fluent in Gaelic—fluent enough to be working in the bun-sgoil as a teacher's assistant.

That opportunity is no longer available for parents in Inverness. They would have to go to Skye to do a similar course. Parents in Inverness whose children go to school there need a course locally. I know that the college is trying to resurrect the course. Many people who send their children to Gaelic-medium education are not native Gaelic speakers, but they want to help their children, so it is important that they have that ability. Of course, other options are built in, such as other people helping kids with their homework, but it is much better if the parents can do it. As the parents learn, there are more Gaelic speakers and they are more likely to speak in Gaelic to their children at home.

It is a real joy for me to listen to my granddaughter, who is coming up for 11 this year. One tremendous feature of Gaelic-medium education is the amount of music and culture that is built in. It is lovely to listen to her singing to herself in Gaelic, without any hint of embarrassment. That is a fantastic feature that permeates such schools. The bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis has been a great success. It is full, as is the pre-school. When people realise that children do very well in Gaelic-medium education and that their cognitive abilities are very good, they want to send their children through that education.

Ken Macintosh compared Gaelic-medium units with Gaelic-medium schools. A full Gaelic-medium school is definitely much better than a unit because a unit, by definition, is located within an English-speaking school. The problem for the children is that, although they get Gaelic in the classroom, the assembly in the morning has to be held in English because the English-speaking kids cannot speak Gaelic, although the Gaelic-speaking ones can speak English. Out in the playground and in the canteen, English tends to be spoken. There is a dilution of the language when there is just a unit.

The situation with the Sleat primary school was difficult and traumatic. It was a shame when Highland Council decided to have an English-medium unit within a Gaelic school, because that did not remove the effect that I mentioned. The children in the English-speaking unit, who are a minority in the Gaelic-speaking school, still have to be told in English what is going on at the assembly. The same effect occurs in the canteen and playground. There is not the full immersion that is required to allow the kids to utilise the language right across the board. We need to consider that carefully.

I am pleased that Highland Council is considering having Gaelic-medium schools in Portree and Fort William. As I said, such schools are necessary because Gaelic units in English-speaking schools do not provide pupils with the full benefit. The situation is hard enough already. When the children at Gaelic-medium schools come out of school, they tend to slip into English because they are surrounded by it. The more that we can do to make them believe that Gaelic is the normal language to use for everything that they do in school, the better things will be in the future.