Posted 26 June 2008

To give the Welsh language a secure future there must be a much more aggressive teaching campaign in Wales’s majority English-medium secondary schools. This is the main recommendation in Saving Our Language, a new Institute of Welsh Affairs think-tank publication by Ken Hopkins, a former chairman of the Welsh Labour Executive and Secretary of the Rhondda Labour Party. He says the Assembly Government should set a target of 50 per cent of the population speaking Welsh by 2025. But this will only be achieved, he argues, if all secondary schools in Wales become bilingual.

At present most English-medium secondary schools are far from bilingual. Estyn, Her Majesty's School Inspectorate in Wales, paints a “wretched picture” of standards of achievement amongst 14-16-year-olds, with many spending only one-hour a week learning Welsh. But an example of what can be achieved is happening in the Rhondda where Treorchy Comprehensive School is turning itself into a bilingual institution. Of the eight form entry, a quarter of the school’s pupils in two streams are being taught in the Welsh language:

“The future for the language now lies in initiatives with English-only speaking pupils all over Wales, just like that being taken at Treorchy Comprehensive School where, building on the strong foundation laid by its catchment area schools, it is quietly transforming itself into a bilingual, comprehensive school and a splendid model we would hope for others to follow.”

A former Director of Education with Mid Glamorgan County Council, Ken Hopkins says the Assembly Government should adopt a new Welsh Language Manifesto which gives top priority to teaching Second Language Welsh. The increase in numbers of children in Welsh-medium is slowing, he says, and predicts that without a major initiative in the English-medium sector the Welsh language will enter another period of decline. Good practice in English-medium schools as far apart as Pembrokeshire, Powys, Merthyr and Torfaen should be built on:

“The Assembly Government should acknowledge the major crisis facing the language, and quickly give a firm commitment in its Language Manifesto to finding the resources necessary for an increase in the number of Welsh speaking teachers and support staff to implement a programme aimed at extending and improving the teaching of Welsh as a second language.”

"Welsh Republicans wish to secure the future of the language and make Cymru a truly and throughly Welsh speaking Nation. Attempts, by the introduction of half-hearted measures and past legislation has not been enough. We have to promote Welsh, especially in nursery and primary education in Wales, with the language given the same priority as Mathematics and English. " said Chris Davies.

"This needs to be part of an overall Restoration Campaign of protectionist and restoration policies aimed at ensuring that the language rides on from strength to strength, not only in the Heartlands themselves, but  throughout Wales"

"The Treachery of the Blue Books in 1850 , when children were forced to speak English and punished if they dared to speak Cymraeg, was almost successful in carrying out the Saxon Victorians' imperialistic agenda for rapid colonisation. Welsh Republicans need to be just as forcefull when it comes to the promotion of the language of heaven" comments Chris Davies, Welsh Republican spokesperson.

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