The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has announced that all Gaelscoileanna will be obliged to teach English to pupils for 30 minutes each day starting from the second term of junior infants.
Until now, many Gaelscoileanna have operated a system known as total immersion. This means no English is taught for the first two years of school.
The Gaelscoileanna say they are following international best practice in doing this.
Making the announcement, the Minister said she could not stand over a situation where schools were adopting an 'a la carte' approach to the teaching of English.
She said schools with a tradition of total immersion would have until 2008 to implement the new policy.
