PSC, ERC, JxCat and the ‘comuns’, the parties that have been trying for weeks to reach an agreement on languages in Catalan schools that responds to the sentence that stipulates that 25% of classes be given in Spanish, are one step away from achieving that historic goal to renew the language consensus in the classroom. Representatives of these formations have agreed on a new bill, officially called “on the use and learning of official languages in non-university education”which will be discussed in the coming days in the parties’ directions.
The text, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access, does not include percentages for each language, which is a gesture towards the socialist thesis. Instead, it is included in a new regulation, while the PSC initially preferred to modify the Language Policy Law to respond to the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), as everyone had agreed before Junts yielded to the pressure of the most irredentist sovereignism and get off the hook. It is to be expected that the other tool with which the parties will respond to the ruling, a government decree, will collect points of view closer to those of the independence movement, and for this reason it remains to be seen what support it manages to arouse in Parliament.
But the bill does bear the names of Alícia Romero (PSC), Marta Vilalta (ERC), Mònica Sales (Junts) and David Cid (En Comú Podem), four of the negotiators in recent weeks. If the party leaderships give their approval, the rule will be processed by the single reading procedure and by extraordinary urgency.
If approved, the law will have only three articles and two additional provisions. “Catalan, as Catalonia’s own language, is the language normally used as the vehicular and learning language of the educational system and the language of normal use in the reception of newly arrived students”, says article 2, which includes this last precision upon request of Together. And continues: “Spanish is used in the terms established by the linguistic projects of each centerin accordance with the criteria established in article 3″.
In this third section, devoted to “determining the presence of the official languages in the curriculum and in linguistic projects”, the most important aspects of the standard are found. “In order for students to achieve oral and written command of Catalan and Spanish at the end of compulsory education, these languages must have an adequate presence in the curriculum and in the linguistic projects of the centers”, he says in his second point.
The environment of each center, key
In the third, he states that the environment of each school in linguistic matters will be taken into account. “The determination of the presence of the official languages in education must take into account the general sociolinguistic situation, that of the centers and their environment, the objectives of linguistic normalization and the evolution of the linguistic, oral and written learning process, in accordance with the instruments of control, evaluation and improvement of linguistic competences. The scope of this presence must be determined exclusively with pedagogical criteria and from a global, integrative and cross-curricular approach that includes all learning resources, also those of a digital nature”, says the text.
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The operative part is preceded by a long statement of reasons in which the parties review the history of the language in the Catalan school after the Franco regime, and underlines the importance that has been given in Catalonia to students are not separated in schools based on their mother tongue.
Also listed are the “legal elementssocial, pedagogical and technological” -without more precision with respect to the ruling of the TSJC- that “make necessary the specific adaptation of the general linguistic regime related to non-university education […] to achieve the statutory and legally established purpose of guaranteeing oral and written command of the two official languages by students”.