Sir, – Sharif Bouktila raises some pertinent questions around Irish as a school subject and entry requirements for certain colleges. It certainly seems ludicrous that one needs to have achieved a grade in a language (Irish or another) to undertake a course for which these are superfluous (“My son faces a choice that makes no educational sense”, Letters, September 28th).
However, I disagree with the proposal of bonus points for Irish, and indeed I have always had reservations about the bonus points for maths.
Perversely, just as Irish may be irrelevant for a particular course, awarding bonus points for maths when the course may have no requirement for maths is surely unfair.
If a policy of bonus points is retained, surely acquiring these should depend on the relevance to the course being applied for? For example, bonus points awarded for maths if pursuing a mathematical, engineering or science course and awarded for languages and history/geography for those pursuing study in arts and humanities?
RM Block
On the broader question of the place of Irish: as a retired primary schoolteacher with more than 40 years’ service, I firmly believe Irish should be purely an oral subject in primary school with an option to take it as a full academic subject in secondary schools.
Maybe then, instead of lip service to the language, the lips of Irish people would be more likely to utter a cúpla focal more frequently? – Yours, etc,
JOHN DRISCOLL,
Blackrock,
Cork.
