 Classes in Gaelic will be available to children from three to 18 |
Education officials have approved the first secondary school in Scotland to teach classes exclusively in Gaelic. The school, on the site of the former Woodside Secondary School in Glasgow, is due to open in 2006.
Pupils will be taught entirely in Gaelic from the age of three until they leave school at 18.
Steven Purcell, Glasgow City Council's education convener, said the education committee was overwhelmed by the case for a separate Gaelic-medium campus.
Plans to set up the school were first announced by education minister Peter Peacock in May.
Numbers rising
The Executive has earmarked �2.75mn towards the �3.5m cost of building the school, which will share a campus with a pre-school and a primary school.
There are currently 34 secondary schools across Scotland which offer Gaelic language classes for fluent speakers, while a further 15 teach other subjects in Gaelic.
The total number of pupils in Gaelic-medium education has risen from 2,661 in 2002/03 to 2,879 in 2003/04.
Mr Peacock, who is the minister responsible for Gaelic, said: "By backing plans for a dedicated Gaelic medium secondary, we are clearly showing our commitment to the language and it's great news that we now have sufficient demand for the school."
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