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Education Reform – 2000

The Northern Ireland Act (1998) brought about substantial changes in terms of outlining strategies to deal with the treatment of languages, the government signed the charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2000.

In 2000, the Department of Education established Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG), a representative body for Irish-medium education. According to the CnaG, there were around 90 Irish-medium schools at the pre-school, primary, and post-primary levels as of 2012, which provided an Irish-medium education to almost 5,000 children.¹ There appeared to be steady progress in the promotion of Irish-medium education. Before the agreement, fewer than 500 students were enrolled in Irish language schools.

1. “Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta”, accessed February 7, 2013, http://www.comhairle.org/english/.