English-medium education
An English-medium education system is one that uses English as the primary medium of instruction—particularly where English is not the mother tongue of students.
Initially this is associated with the expansion of English from its homeland in England and the lowlands of Scotland and its spread to the rest of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning in the sixteenth century. The rise of the British Empire increased the language's spread to British colonies, and in many of these it has remained the medium of education. The increased economic and cultural influence of the United States since World War II has also furthered the global spread of English, as has the rapid spread of Internet and other technologies. As a result of this, there are English-medium schools in many states throughout the world where English is not the predominant language. Also in higher education, due to the recent trend towards internationalization, an increasing number of degree courses, particularly at master's level, are being taught through the medium of English.
Known as English-medium instruction, or ICLHE, this rapidly growing phenomenon has been contested in many contexts.
By country
Canada
Education is a provincial matter under the Canadian constitution, section 92. French language rights have been guaranteed in the province of Quebec since the Treaty of Paris 1763, French outside of Quebec and all other minority languages have faced laws against them at one time or another. English-only education laws were gradually rolled out across Canada during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the Manitoba Schools Question in 1896 and Regulation 17 in Ontario in 1912, which both targeted French and other European minority languages, and the Indian residential schools system which attacked Aboriginal languages.These policies were gradually abolished in the wake of Canada's adoption of official bilingualism in 1969 and multiculturalism in 1971, but English remains the predominant language of education outside of Quebec and New Brunswick.
Wales
The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, passed by the Parliament of England, annexing Wales to the Kingdom of England are sometimes known as the "Acts of Union."An often quoted example of the effects on the Welsh language is the first section of the Laws in Wales Act 1535, which states: "the people of the same dominion have and do daily use a speech nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm" and then declares the intention "utterly to extirpate all and singular sinister usages and customs" belonging to Wales.
Section 20 of the Laws in Wales Act 1535 makes English the only language of the law courts and states that those who used Welsh would not be appointed to any public office in Wales:
An effect of this language clause was to lay the foundation for creating a thoroughly Anglicised ruling class of landed gentry in Wales, which would have many consequences.
The parts of the Laws in Wales Act 1535 relating to language were definitively repealed only in 1993, by the Welsh Language Act 1993, though annotations on the Statute Law Database copy of the act read that sections 18–21 were repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1887.
In July 1846, the British Government appointed three commissioners to inquire into the state of education in Wales; the Commissioners were all monoglot English-speakers.
The Commissioners reported to the Government on 1 July 1847 in three large blue-bound volumes – the
Ireland
The poet Edmund Spenser wrote in a recommendation that "the Irish... be educated in English, in grammar and in science... for learning hath that wonderful power of itself that it can soften and temper the most stern and savage nature."The setting up of 'Royal Schools' in Ireland, was proclaimed in 1608 by James I, with the intended purpose "that there shall be one Free School at least appointed in every County, for the education of youth in learning and religion."
These schools provided an English-medium education to the sons of landed settlers in Ireland, most of whom were of Scottish or English descent.
However, only five such schools were actually set up; The Royal School, Armagh in County Armagh, Portora Royal School in County Fermanagh, The Cavan Royal School in County Cavan, The Royal School Dungannon in Tyrone and The Royal and Prior School in County Donegal.
The National Education System was founded in 1831, by the British Government, under the direction of the Chief Secretary, E.G. Stanley. Some 2,500 national schools were established in Ulster in the period 1832–1870, built with the aid of the Commissioners of National Education and local trustees.
S. Ó Buachalla states:
During the first four decades of their existence, there is no mention of the Irish language in the programme of regulations of the Commissioners of National Education; furthermore no provision whatsoever was made in 1831 when the original scheme was drawn up for education of those children who spoke Irish only. According to the official opinion of later Commissioners, expressed in a formal reply to the Chief Secretary in 1884, " the anxiety of the promoters of the National Scheme was to encourage the cultivation of the English language.
The Irish patriot P.H. Pearse published a series of studies of the English-medium education system in Ireland. His article entitled The Murder Machine embodies an article which appeared in the Irish Review for February 1913.
Pearse wrote in his pamphlet the following:
And English education in Ireland has seemed: to some like the bed of Procustes, the bed on which all men that passed that way must lie, be it never so big for them, be it never so small for them: the traveller for whom it was too large had his limbs stretched until he filled it; the traveller for whom it was too small had his limbs chopped off until he fitted into it—comfortably. It was a grim jest to play upon travellers. The English have done it to Irish children not by way of jest, but with a purpose. Our English-Irish systems took, and take, absolutely no cognisance of the differences between individuals, of the differences between localities, of the: differences between urban and rural communities, of the differences springing from a different ancestry, Gaelic or Anglo-Saxon.
Scotland
Attempts were made by legislation, in the later medieval and early modern period, to establish English at first among the aristocracy and increasingly amongst all ranks by education acts and parish schools. The Parliament of Scotland passed some ten such acts between 1494 and 1698.In 1609 nine Gaelic chieftains were abducted and forced to sign the Statutes of Iona, which would seem to have been designed specifically to Anglicize leaders and institutions of Gaelic society, in order to bring it under control of central government.
Among the items listed in this agreement was the "planting of the gospell among these rude, barbarous, and uncivill people" by Protestant churches; the outlawing of bards who were traditionally on circuit between the houses of noblemen; the requirement that all men of wealth send their heirs to be educated in Lowland schools where they would be taught to "speik, reid, and wryte Inglische."
The then King James VI, followed this by the School Establishment Act 1616, which sought to establish schools in every parish in the Scottish Highlands so that "the youth be exercised and trayned up in civilitie, godlines, knawledge, and learning, that the vulgar Inglische toung be universallie plantit, and the Irische language, whilk is one of the chief and principall causes of the continewance of barbaritie and incivilitie amongis the inhabitantis of the Ilis and Heylandis, may be abolisheit and removeit."
In 1709 the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge was established in order to further funding sources for Highland church schools. All manner of incentives and punishments were used to stop children from speaking Scottish Gaelic. The SSPCK had five schools by 1711, 25 by 1715, 176 by 1758 and 189 by 1808, by then with 13,000 pupils attending. At first the SSPCK avoided using the Gaelic language with the result that pupils ended up learning by rote without understanding what they were reading. In 1741 the SSPCK introduced a Gaelic-English vocabulary, then in 1766 brought in a New Testament with facing pages of Gaelic and English texts for both languages to be read alongside one another, with more success. After a number of years of unsuccessful attempts at English-only teaching methods, it was realized that literacy in Gaelic was a much more effective means of teaching and a bridge towards fluency in English.
Since 1918 education acts have provided for teaching Gaelic in Gaelic-speaking areas, but development was very slow until Gaelic
became an initial teaching medium in the Gaelic areas of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire from 1958. In 1975 the newly created Western Isles education authority introduced bilingual primary education shortly followed by Highland Region in Skye. Gaelic-medium primary education commenced with two schools in 1985, growing to 42 units by 1993/94.
In secondary education, Gaelic has long been taught as a subject—often through the medium of English, even to native speakers. A move towards bilingual secondary education in the Western Isles was frustrated by a change of government in the 1979 United Kingdom general election. Gaelic-medium secondary education has developed less satisfactorily. Gaelic-medium streams followed on from primary in Glasgow and Inverness, with some experimentation in the Western Isles, but the sector is hampered by acute teacher shortage, and an Ofsted inspectorate report of 1994 regarded Gaelic-medium secondary education as divisive and inappropriate.
Third level provision through Gaelic is provided by Sabhal Mòr Ostaig a Gaelic-medium college based in Sleat, on the Isle of Skye in north west Scotland. It is part of the University of the Highlands and Islands, and also has a campus on Islay known as Ionad Chaluim Chille Ìle.
In 2004, Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay, stated that:
The beauty of Gaelic music and song is inescapable. But without the living language, it risks becoming an empty shell. That is why an education system, up to the level represented by the college here in Skye, is so important – to ensure fluency and literacy which will continue to renew the health and creativity of the language.
The Gaelic Language Act 2005 is the first piece of legislation to give formal recognition to the Gaelic language in Scotland. It recognises Gaelic as an official language of Scotland, commanding "equal respect" with English.
Education Minister Peter Peacock, who has ministerial responsibility for Gaelic, said: "This is a momentous day for Gaelic as we open a new chapter in the language's history. We have come a long way since the dark days of 1616 when an Act of Parliament ruled that Gaelic should be 'abolishit and removit' from Scotland."