SPAIN AGAINST THE CATALONIA NATION -- Catalan News Agency - Catalan Education Minister believes the Spanish Government's school reform can still be stopped

Catalan News Agency - Catalan Education Minister believes the Spanish Government's school reform can still be stopped

Catalan Education Minister believes the Spanish Government's school reform can still be stopped

CNA

Barcelona (ACN).- On Thursday, Irene Rigau, the Catalan
Minister for Education, announced that Catalonia will participate in the
working group created to analyse how to better implement the Spanish
Government's Education Reform. However, she also stated that the results
of such a working group will have to be assessed before implementing
the Education Reform. On Wednesday, after a meeting that Rigau refused
to attend, the Spanish Government said that the Reform will be
implemented "one way or the other" in September 2014 throughout Spain,
including Catalonia. Rigau refused to attend because the meeting
discussed how Spanish will be made an instruction language in Catalan
schools, an idea which is unacceptable for the wide majority of
Catalans. In addition, Rigau insisted on the need to analyse the results
of the working group, which might highlight difficulties to implement
the Reform from the next school year, particularly regarding the
imposition of the Spanish language on the Catalan school system. Such a
working group was announced earlier this week by the Spanish Education
Minister, José Ignacio Wert, aiming to make "Catalonia feel comfortable"
with the Reform, despite all the Catalan education stakeholders totally opposing it. In fact, the new legislation obliges the Catalan Government to offer Spanish as an instruction language or to pay for privately-owned schools.
Wert's Reform entirely changes Catalonia's current school model, which
has been in place for the last three decades and fosters bilingualism.
Simultaneously, a tedious judicial process is currently in place, trying
to make Spanish an instruction language in Catalonia. Regarding this
process, on Thursday, it has been confirmed that after weeks of
uncertainty, finally the five schools that were forced to teach "at
least" 25% of the compulsory subjects in Spanish have been allowed to
join the appeal against such a decision. Furthermore, also on Thursday,
the Catalan Ombudsmann, Rafel Ribó, urged the Catalan Government to keep
the current school model, since "Catalonia has an excellent situation
of linguistic equilibrium". "It is a treasure that has to be preserved
and fostered", since, besides the cultural advantages, it guarantees
social cohesion and equal opportunities.

The current Catalan school system is based on the linguistic
immersion principle and it guarantees that pupils entirely master both
Catalan and Spanish at the end of the schooling period. However, Spanish
nationalists have put the model under the spotlight, stating that they
have "the right" to school their children in Spanish in Catalonia, even
though such measure would not guarantee a sufficient knowledge of
Catalan, according to experts. Such a right does not exist in the
Constitution, which only recognises the "right and duty to know
Spanish". As the Constitutional Court already acknowledged it, the
Catalan school system respects such a right, as Catalan students get
similar or even better results (depending on the years) in their Spanish
assessments than the average of their peers in the rest of Spain.
However, for the Spanish Government, which is run by the People's Party
(PP), this is not enough and they would like to change the entire model,
making Spanish an instruction language.

In practical terms, this would mean that children from
Spanish-speaking environments schooled in Spanish would not be
sufficiently exposed to Catalan and they might have problems mastering
this language. Consequently, bilingualism would not be fostered and it
would be quite the contrary, since the knowledge of Spanish would be
guaranteed but not that of Catalan. In the long-term, this would affect
equal opportunities and would create two separate language communities.
In fact, the Autonomous Communities governed by the PP for many years
have managed to change the school system and to marginalise the
languages that are not Spanish, schooling thousands of kids who are
monolingual. Therefore, in the long term, this is a strategy to
homogenise Spain and to marginalise the Catalan language as it was
summed up by Wert in October 2012. Back then he said in front of the
Spanish Parliament: "our objective is to Hispanicise Catalan pupils".

In parallel with the political Education Reform, a judicial battle is going on,
since a small group of families is trying to grant their children the
right to be schooled in Spanish in Catalonia's public school system. The
Spanish Supreme Court, which neither has the power to change laws nor
to act as a legislative or an executive power, is trying to impose
Spanish in the classrooms attended by the children of these families.
This represents changing the current Education Law of Catalonia,
approved in 2006, and going against the text of the Statute of Autonomy
voted by the Catalan people through a binding referendum. However, in
January, the court forced five schools to teach "at least" 25% of the mandatory subjects in Spanish
from the month of March. Now, the five schools will be allowed to
participate in an appeal prepared by the Catalan Education Ministry.

More on

Catalan Education System, Catalan Government, Catalan Language, Catalan School, Education, Education Reform, Irene Rigau, José Ignacio Wert, Linguistic Immersion, School, schools, Spanish Constitution, Spanish Constitutional Court, Spanish Government, Spanish Language, Spanish Nationalism, Spanish Supreme Court

• 
  

  
  
  

  

The Catalan Education Minister, Irene Rigau, on Thursday in Barcelona (by P. Mateos)

• 
  

Related links

http://www.catalannewsagency.com/catalan-language-school/item/spain-s-supreme-court-insists-on-making-spanish-a-language-of-instruction-in-catalonia