Fate of Language in the hands
of English speakers
IMMEDIATE
PRESS RELEASE
To give the Welsh language a secure future there must be a much more
aggressive teaching campaign in Wales’s majority English-medium
secondary schools. This is the main recommendation in Saving Our Language,
a new IWA publication by Ken Hopkins, a former chairman of the Welsh
Labour Executive and Secretary of the Rhondda Labour Party. He says
the Assembly Government should set a target of 50 per cent of the
population speaking Welsh by 2025. But this will only be achieved,
he argues, if all secondary schools in Wales become bilingual.
At present most English-medium secondary schools are far from bilingual.
According to Ken Hopkins, Estyn reports paint a wretched picture of
standards of achievement amongst 14-16-year-olds, with many spending
only one-hour a week learning Welsh. But an example of what can be
achieved is happening in the Rhondda where Treorchy Comprehensive
School is turning itself into a bilingual institution. Of the eight
form entry, a quarter of the school’s pupils in two streams
are being taught in the Welsh language:
“The future for the language now lies in initiatives with English-only
speaking pupils all over Wales, just like that being taken at Treorchy
Comprehensive School where, building on the strong foundation laid
by its catchment area schools, it is quietly transforming itself into
a bilingual, comprehensive school and a splendid model we would hope
for others to follow.”
A former Director of Education with Mid Glamorgan County Council,
Ken Hopkins says the Assembly Government should adopt a new Welsh
Language Manifesto which gives top priority to teaching Second Language
Welsh. The increase in numbers of children in Welsh-medium is slowing,
he says, and predicts that without a major initiative in the English-medium
sector the Welsh language will enter another period of decline. Good
practice in English-medium schools as far apart as Pembrokeshire,
Powys, Merthyr and Torfaen should be built on:
“The Assembly Government should acknowledge the major crisis
facing the language, and quickly give a firm commitment in its Language
Manifesto to finding the resources necessary for an increase in the
number of Welsh speaking teachers and support staff to implement a
programme aimed at extending and improving the teaching of Welsh as
a second language.”
For Further Information contact:
Ken Hopkins, 01443 682443 Mob: 07977 098135
or John Osmond, Director, IWA, 029 2066 6606 Mob: 07720 599457 johnosmond@iwa.org.uk
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