by Daniel Ritort
Catalonia is facing one of the biggest threats to its educational system since the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. Spanish government said it will pass a law to relegate Catalan language to a third-class subject in schools. The Catalan government has reacted angrily to the Spanish government proposed law to relegate Catalan to a third-class subject in schools while Spanish would continue to be a core subject.
Jose Ignacio Wert, Minister of Education of Spain, said in Spanish Congress some weeks ago that he wants to Hispanicize Catalan pupils. His legislative proposal, presented less than two weeks after the Catalan elections, is now threatening to make any kind of recognition between his conservative party and the Catalan government even more unlikely.
Irene Rigau, Minister of Education of Catalonia, left a meeting in Madrid to express her opposition to the motion. She said that the proposals presented are not negotiable for the Catalans.
The draft law is full of ideas that have caused a row in Catalonia, and great criticism in social media like Facebook or Twitter with hashtags such as #wertgonya (#wertbashful).
While downgrading the importance of Catalan as a subject, the draft also forces the Catalan government to offer more subjects in Spanish, therefore challenging the current model. For the last decades, Catalan has been the language of instruction in order to guarantee that all pupils and their studies knowing both official languages.
The proposed law also says that the Catalan government should pay for private education in Spanish for those families that ask for it as far as the system is not reasonable in offering of both languages.
Rigau said that the project completely kills the Catalan educational system and warned she won't implement it in Catalonia. In fact, according to her, Wert's proposal is the worst legislative piece on the teaching of regional languages since 1978.
The proposal would relegate the Catalan language to a specialized subject at schools, while the Spanish language would continue to be a core subject and a second foreign language would be taught as a specific subject. Board exams in secondary education won't include the Catalan language and more curricular content would be dictated by the Spanish government.
Artur Mas, President of Catalonia, has called an extraordinary and unprecedented meeting with all the political parties that defend the current linguistic model in Catalan schools (all except the PP and C's).
The meeting will also include the Schools' council and will be an opportunity to plan a reaction to the threatening Spanish law. Alongside Mas, Oriol Junqueras, leader of ERC, the second-largest party in Catalonia, Pere Navarro, from the PSC, the third-largest party in Catalonia, and Joan Herrera, from ICV-EUiA, the Catalan green party , will also participate in the summit.
In Catalonia's public schools, Catalan is the language of instruction in order to guarantee that all pupils finish their studies knowing both official languages: Catalan and Spanish. Spanish is taught as a subject.
The model works, and Catalan pupils not only know Catalan but they also get the same result as the Spanish pupils in Spanish language exams, if not better. In addition, the model has been praised as a good practice by the European Commission and UNESCO.
However, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that Spanish should be the language of instruction in Catalan schools based on an appeal by 3 parents, who took the Catalan government to court for not schooling their children in Spanish within the public education system of Catalonia.
Many legal experts think that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to change the entire school model, already defined by several laws. Furthermore, the Spanish Constitutional Court has validated the Catalan school model twice, in 1994 and in 2010. In addition, teacher unions and parents associations back the current model.
This controversy has been used by some Spanish politicians throughout Spain, most of them from the Spanish PP party. According to most Catalan political parties, it is a false controversy only created for electoral reasons to feed Spanish nationalism. In fact, the draft law proposed by Wert is seen as a concession to these right-wing demands.
The Catalan government, with the support of most of the civic society in Catalonia and the main political parties, teachers and students unions, is planning to fight any attempt to change the current educational system in Catalonia.
Rigau warned that they could try to challenge the Spanish law in the Constitutional Court. The project, still to be debated, could be passed because the PP has an overall majority in the Spanish parliament.
Rigau argued that Catalan law should prevail. She said they are facing an attack, and she doesn't know if that's because of a personal obsession by minister Wert or from the Spanish government. She also added that Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of Spain, said he wanted to rebuild bridges with Catalonia, and now he is hurting the Catalan society like that.
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