Chamber and committees

First, I ask Donald Macleod to respond to the question that Seonaidh Charity raised earlier about why teachers qualified to teach Gaelic are not teaching the subject in schools. Why is that happening? What research has been done on that?

We can talk about Scots, too.

Thank you. That is all that I have, convener.

Are you making progress on that front? Are you managing to keep some of them in the classroom?

My question is for Dr Birnie, and it is about teacher recruitment. What are the challenges in recruiting Gaelic teachers, and how effective has the recent policy change been in improving recruitment into ITE courses?

That explains the origin of it. There seems to be a slight contradiction in the fact that, previously, the general appeal was the direction of travel, but we now seem to be focusing on areas of concentration. I am not saying that it is an either/or, but it seems that a different direction of travel is being taken. However, the main point of my question is about what difference it will make.

I wonder whether Niall Bartlett has a list.

Let me be a bit more direct. If I arrive on the ferry at Lochboisdale and that is designated as an area of linguistic significance, what will I see that is different? What will I hear that is different?

Thank you. Claire Cullen, did you want to come in on that?

I thank Ruth Maguire for her question.

Could you tell us a bit more about standards, not just in those areas of linguistic significance, but across the country? Explain to me how they will work, what kind of standard we are rising to and what difference people in Edinburgh, Glasgow and elsewhere will feel.