Catalan News Agency - Courts request Catalan schools to teach “at least 25%" of the mandatory subjects in Spanish
Barcelona (ACN).- On Friday, Catalonia’s
High Court (TSJC) requested the Catalan Government to offer “at least”
25% of the mandatory school curricula in Spanish in the
schools where a single pupil asks for it. The TSJC made this
announcement following a sentence from Spanish Supreme Court that was
issued on Monday. This represents another episode in a long sequence of
judicial appeals that aim to change the entire Catalan school model,
which has been in place for 35 years and absolutely guarantees the
knowledge of both Catalan and Spanish at the end of the schooling
period, as proven by the results. However, Spanish nationalist media and
parties have been targeting Catalan school for the last decade.
Furthermore, the Spanish Government aims “to Hispanicise” Catalan pupils with its new Education Reform. In
the last few years a dozen of parents filed several judicial complaints
and appeals requesting their children to be taught in Spanish in
Catalonia’s public schools. The Catalan school model is based on the
linguistic immersion principle and almost all the subjects are taught in
Catalan except Spanish which is taught as a language, although some
schools offer a few subjects in Spanish using their autonomy to set
their own education project. It has been praised by the UNESCO and the
European Commission since it fosters equal opportunities, strengthens a
true bilingualism and does not create two separate language communities.
The system, which schools more than 1 million pupils per year, includes
many flexibility measures for new-comers and individualised attention
in Spanish. However, the Spanish Supreme Court considered this was
insufficient and sentenced that Spanish had to be included as a language
of instruction for an entire class group if the family of a single
pupil was asking for it and even if the other children’s families had
not requested it. The Catalan Government appealed this sentence but on
Monday the Spanish Supreme Court rejected the appeal. This Friday, the
Catalan Education Minister, Irene Rigau, announced they will file
another appeal against the TSJC’s decision. She criticised the attempts
to change via the judicial system a model that has been working for more
than 3 decades and which is based on an extremely broad consensus among
the Catalan society.
Rigau said to be “shocked and outraged” because the TSJC is not
waiting for the Constitutional Court to decide on the appeal filed by
the Catalan Government a few months ago. Furthermore, she emphasised
that the Spanish Supreme Court is going beyond its jurisdiction while it
is trying to change Catalonia’s Education Law. In Spain, the
Constitutional Court is the only judicial power that can interpret and
change laws. In the past, the Constitutional Court backed the Catalan
school model, although in 2010 it introduced an ambiguous nuance while
it trimmed the Catalan Statute of Autonomy. Many experts identify this
sentence from 2010 as one of the main triggers for nowadays conflict
between Catalonia and Spain.
Catalan has to be “the centre of gravity” of the system but…
On Friday, the TSJC stated that the Catalan language has to be “the
centre of gravity” but added that Spanish has to be offered “in a
reasonable proportion”. However, the measure would only be implemented
for the schools where the five families that filed the appeal bring
their children. The TSJC interprets the Constitutional Court’s sentence
against the Catalan Statute of Autonomy from 2010, which totally trimmed
the text despite it having been approved by the Spanish Parliament and
the Catalan people through a binding referendum. The Constitutional
Court validated the Catalan school system and the linguistic immersion
model recognised in the Statute of Autonomy. Years before it had already
validated the model, stating that the Constitution does not recognise
“the right to be taught in Spanish” but only “the right and duty to know
Spanish”. Since the Catalan school system absolutely guarantees the
second, the Court validated the linguistic immersion. In fact, Catalan
pupils obtain the same results or even better ones – depending on the
year – in Spanish language than the average of their peers throughout
Spain.
However, in 2010, the Constitutional Court included a nuance, which
is the excuse used by the Supreme Court to force to change the model.
The Constitutional Court stated that the linguistic immersion had to be
understood as the “Catalan language as the centre of gravity” of the
system but that “Spanish could not be excluded”. The Catalan Government
argues that Spanish is not excluded since there is the subject of
Spanish language and children totally master it by the end of their
school years. However the Supreme Court considers it is insufficient.
In previous sentences it repeatedly asked the Catalan Government to
make Spanish an instruction language but it left the Catalan Executive
to decide in which proportion. However, Catalan authorities rejected
this decision and filed several appeals against it. On Monday the
Supreme Court ruled against the last appeal and supports the dozen
families asking their children to be taught in Spanish.
The TSJC is interpreting Monday’s sentence and at the same time takes
into consideration the reports presented by the Catalan Government and
the five schools involved (where the five families who had filed the
appeal bring their children). Finally, the Court has decided that in the
classes where the family of a single pupil requests it, “at least 25%”
of the mandatory subjects have to be taught in Spanish, no matter if the
families of the rest of the children want them to be taught in Catalan.
The TSJC considered it was insufficient to offer subjects such as
Drawing in Spanish, as some schools already do. The Court has specified
that Spanish has to be an instruction language in a mandatory subject
such as History, Geography, Mathematics or Biology.
More on
Class in a Catalan high-school (by M. Belmez)
