PPLI Audit of Foreign Languages - Flipbook - Page 56
5.3 Non-curricular language exams (Q37- 39)
41% of schools mentioned a curricular language in response to question 39, indicating that the term non-curricular
language is sometimes misunderstood. The non-curricular EU languages for the Leaving Certificate are: Latvian,
Lithuanian, Romanian, Slovenian, Modern Greek, Finnish, Polish, Estonian, Slovak, Swedish, Czech, Bulgarian,
Hungarian, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch and Croatian.
4%
English-Medium
77%
Irish-Medium
39%
Mixed
74%
Boys
85%
15%
0%
Girls
81%
19%
0%
Smaller Schools
500
86%
13%
1%
Non-Fee-Paying Voluntary Secondary
82%
17%
1%
Fee-Paying Voluntary Secondary
67%
33%
0%
ETB Schools
69%
23%
7%
Community and Comp Schools
90%
0%
10%
19%
3%
58%
Yes
6%
20%
25%
6%
10%
No
N/A
(we are a
new school)
0%
20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Figure 37: Numbers of students sitting LC non-curricular languages
75% of English-medium schools reported that students have sat Leaving Certificate non-curricular languages,
compared to only 39% in Irish-medium schools. The majority of these schools have fewer than ten students sitting
the exam and the average across all English-medium schools was 5.5 in 2016, slightly up from 5.4 in 2014 and 2015.
Among the non-curricular languages in which exams have been taken, Polish (78%) is most prevalent, followed by
Lithuanian (39%), Romanian, Portuguese and Latvian. In nine out of ten cases, students are not given support in the
school.
The survey does reflect the ranking order for the top 5 non-curricular languages in 2017 from the State Examinations
Commission: Polish: 693 or 49% of all non-curricular language sits; Lithuanian: 213 or 15%; Romanian: 193 or 14%;
Portuguese: 84 or 6%; and Latvian: 75 or 5%.
The following maps and tables indicate the actual counties presenting more than 10 candidates in the top five noncurricular exams (data supplied by SEC), which gives a sense of where support for these languages might be
considered.
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Audit of Foreign Languages Provision in Post-Primary Schools 2017
Post-Primary Languages Initiative February 2017 Draft Report
