Equality of access to minority language assessments and interventions in immersion education

Abstract

Abstract In the Republic of Ireland (RoI), Irish is recognised as the first official language of the state. The public has the right to conduct all business with the state solely through the medium of Irish if they wish. The reality, however, is that many government bodies only provide services in English. This article discusses the language used for assessments and interventions for students with special educational needs (SEN) in Irish-medium (IM) primary and post-primary schools in the RoI. A mixed methods study was conducted, with teachers from schools (n = 56) completing an online questionnaire at first and then teachers (n = 32) undertaking semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that students in IM schools are not being afforded access to services in Irish and many challenges exist for these schools when meeting the SEN of students. Recommendations are made around how to strengthen educational policy and practice to enable IM teachers meet the needs of all students.