Critics of Gaelic-medium education are so out of touch they are like embarrassing 1970s comedians, the Scottish Parliament has heard.
And Gaelic’s “very existence is at stake” so debate around the language must be depoliticised, according to a Tory MSP, whose comments were in marked contrast to recent pronouncements from his party.
Alasdair Allan, SNP MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles), said: “Thirty years ago, I remember hearing a prominent Scot - one who should have known better - offering the opinion on the radio that he was ‘grateful’ that his Gaelic-speaking parents had never spoken Gaelic to him when he was growing up in case that had ‘held him back’.
“Let me be clear: the idea that Gaelic or any form of bilingualism might hold children back is a view that I thought had been long relegated to the same embarrassing corner as the views that were expressed by comedians on Saturday night TV around the year 1975.”
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Dr Allan was speaking - in Gaelic - to a motion calling on MSPs to welcome the decision by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) to enrol Primary 1 pupils into Gaelic-medium education (GME) as the default choice.
His motion also noted that the percentage of children entering GME in the Western Isles has steadily increased over the past decade, and commended the council’s “progressive step to consolidate the national language in its heartland communities”.
Dr Allan, a former junior education minister, added that “there is an overwhelming consensus among academics and researchers in support of the cognitive benefits of bilingual education”. He highlighted a 2010 University of Edinburgh study showing that GME pupils, on a whole, were by Primary 5 outperforming their English-medium education peers in English reading.
He also said that Gaelic-medium education had not held back Kate Forbes, whose appointment as finance secretary had been unanimously backed by MSPs earlier in the afternoon.
Dr Allan made his comments a few weeks after the Scottish Conservatives’ education spokesperson Liz Smith - who moved into a new job yesterday - was quoted describing the Western Isles move as a “deeply troubling step” that could put children “at a distinct disadvantage to their peers”.
However, during the parliamentary debate on Dr Allan’s motion yesterday, her party colleague Highlands and Islands MSP Donald Cameron took an entirely different tack.
He said it was “necessary to address directly some of the recent reported comments concerning the issue and to put on record my party’s support for Gaelic”.
Mr Cameron - the new shadow finance secretary - added: “The Scottish Conservatives have long been supportive of Gaelic language and culture. It was the arguments of the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, that ensured vital funding for Gaelic broadcasting and culture in the 1980s, which undoubtedly continued to have an impact for years afterwards.”
Mr Cameron also said that the Conservatives had “consistently supported Gaelic as a vital part of our national fabric”, adding that he had “consistently argued that we need to depoliticise Gaelic, not least because its very existence is at stake”.
Maureen Watt, SNP MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, and also a former junior education minister, said: “I note that Donald Cameron supports the motion and it was great to hear him say that he spoke for all the Conservatives. I hope that he told all his colleagues that that was the case - that is perhaps why the spokespeople for the Conservatives have changed today.
“I always find it ironic that his party supports private schools and their provision of dead languages, rather than the living language that is Gaelic.”
Ms Watt also said: “It is important to remember that monoglot countries are the exception rather than the rule. When one lands in Spain and connects to the local mobile providers, up comes the opportunity to link into Catalan, Euskera and Spanish - none of that seems to be a problem.”
Angus MacDonald - who is an SNP MSP for Falkirk East, far from Gaelic’s heartlands - said that a recent survey by Falkirk Council of parents of children who were not yet at school showed that almost 40 per cent of respondents would be interested in Gaelic-medium education being offered.
Mr MacDonald also noted that 200,000 people had signed up to learn Gaelic through Duolingo since the online-learning system made that an option on 30 November; education secretary John Swinney later said that he was one of them.
