CATALONIA -- Thousands demonstrate in defense of Catalan schooling - VilaWeb

Thousands demonstrate in defense of Catalan schooling - VilaWeb

Thousands demonstrate in defense of Catalan schooling

Strong response to call of SomEscola and
demonstrate in front of the TSJC in Barcelona - They were protesting
against court ruling requiring 25% of the classes in Spanish.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the Superior Court of
Justice of Catalonia this evening, responding to the convocation of Somescola.cat coalition
to voice their opposition to the court ruling that required five
schools to offer 25% of their classes in Spanish. After a speech by
Marius Serra, they read a manifesto that warned that 'this is the most
serious attack that our schools have received since the Transition' and
insisted that 'now more than ever' we have to live by the motto 'For a
country that belongs to everyone, we need our schools in Catalan'. 'We
have to all work together. It's a matter of democracy and of country.
Our future swings in the balance.'

Somescola denounces that
the court instructions are addressed directly to the directors of the
affected schools, which 'attacks the democratic legitimacy and the
mandate of the Parliament of Catalonia'. For Somescola, the intent of
the court is clear: 'politicize the education system in order to
achieve, through the legal system, the centralizing objectives that they
seek'.

'We give witness to the seriousness of a situation in which judges
can go into our classrooms to decide the linguistic policy of our
schools, going over the heads of the criteria and regulations that we
have been constructing for the past 30 years, and which have been
approved by a broad social consensus and by successive laws in the
Parliament of Catalonia and applied in classrooms in accordance with the
Linguistic Projects of the schools, approved by the Academic Council of
each particular school,' said the manifesto, in which Somescola also
declared that the ‘spiraling siege to our educational system has grown
to a point which no democratic country can accept'.

For all those reasons, Somescola firmly demands that the Ministry of
Education firmly defend the current schooling model and 'solidly back
up' the five directors threatened by the judges, 'who have to know that
they have their government and their country behind them'. And they also
called for the collective defense of linguistic immersion and to
'demonstrate that we will never consent to them destroying our Catalan
educational system from the outside, nor that they disrupt the unity of
the Catalan community, by encouraging an artificial conflict'.

Government appeal
The TSJC decision was roundly rejected by the Catalan Government, which has already presented an appeal.
According to the appeal, the rulings violate the Spanish Constitution,
the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, and the Catalan Education Law (LEC).
The government warned, in addition, that the ruling would require that
groups of children were separated by language and they registered their
disagreement with the court's jurisdiction in designating the percentage
of Spanish to be used in the classroom.

One of the affected schools also made a public announcement against the TSJC ruling. In a letter, the Escola Pia of Catalonia pointed out
that its centers 'are rooted in the country and dedicated to its
service'. The school continued, 'We will do everything that we possibly
can to be loyal to our commitment to make Catalan our language of
instruction.'