Kildare teen leads push for sign language to be Leaving Cert subject

A Kildare secondary school pupil is one of two deaf students campaigning to have Irish Sign Language (ISL) made a Leaving Certificate examination subject.

Shane Hamilton (17) from Kilcullen, and Ellie Woods (18) from Clonee, Co Meath are both Leaving Certificate students at the Holy Family School for the Deaf in Dublin’s Cabra, and say they and other students who are users of ISL are being unfairly disadvantaged in the third level points race.

ISL is Shane’s first language and says the campaign is about equal rights for deaf students.

“I learned ISL before English and it is an official language of the State. Surely it is only fair that I sit a Leaving Certificate examination in it? Other students get to sit an exam in their first language,” he said.

The passing by the Oireachtas of the Irish Sign language Act of 2017 gave ISL official language status, alongside Irish and English, but it is not available as a Leaving Certificate exam subject, unlike Drama and Climate Action which were announced as new subjects two weeks ago.

Currently, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) provides Leaving Certificate examinations in a range of what it refers to as ‘non-curricular EU languages’.

These include Latvian, Romanian, Slovenian, Modern Greek, Finnish, Estonian, Slovakian, Swedish, Czech, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Danish, Dutch, Croatian and Maltese.

The SEC states on its website that it is its policy to accede to requests to provide examinations for native speakers in their mother tongue in the case of national languages of EU states, as per Article 149 of the Treaty of Nice. The Irish Sign language Act requires that public services are available through ISL and also outlines the need for greater access to education through sign language.

Chime, the national charity for deaf and hard of hearing people, says there are over 5,000 deaf and hard of hearing students in the Irish education system, with almost all of them (95%) of those in mainstream schooling, while there are approximately 40,000 daily deaf and hearing users of ISL overall.

According to Ellie, provision of an ISL Leaving Certificate examination would remediate the fact that many deaf students are unable to learn Irish.

“It is about getting the points that deaf Leaving Certificate students deserve. A lot of colleges require a grade in Irish but many deaf students are unable to study it,” she said.

Both hope to progress to third-level education. Shane has an ambition to study politics, while Ellie hopes at some point to work with deaf children in the area of early intervention.