Pere Aragonès challenges Justice and hardens the bullying of Spanish in schools in Catalonia

The Government of the Generalitat maintains its challenge to Justice and prepares a new decree on the linguistic regime that aims to further corner Spanish in the Catalan educational system and disregard the obligation to teach at least 25% of classes in Spanish. This was announced by the new Minister of Education, Anna Simò, responding to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, which a few days ago confirmed to three other Catalan centers the application of 25% with an extra core subject.

The new regulation promoted by the Government of Pere Aragonès will oblige teachers to accredit the highest level of Catalan -C2- to be able to attend the competitive examinations or be incorporated into the interim pool, starting in the 2025-2026 academic year. In addition to reinforcing Catalan as the only vehicular language in the system.

A decree, therefore, that rebels against the sentences contrary to the monolingual model and that, also, prepares the ground for the clash with a future Government of Spain presided over by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has promised during this electoral campaign that if es presidente will enforce 25% of the subjects in Spanish.

CHALLENGING

The text contemplates that those responsible for the educational projects of the schools “are not the directorates of the centers, but the Department of Education”, with which, the Government assures, it is intended to “protect” the officials against possible legal claims for not apply 25%.

In addition, it underlines the vehicularity of Catalan in the classrooms of Catalonia and ensures that the linguistic projects cannot be changed with the course started. This is how it seeks to prevent the application of precautionary measures to start applying the 25% of Spanish at mid-course if the Justice so decides.

Simó has remarked that with this plan the Government intends to protect the linguistic projects of the centers and reject political and judicial interference -in his words-, and has assured: “This counselor and the Government will not allow the regression of linguistic rights”.

The new regulations are added to the law approved last year by the PSC, ERC, Junts and the commons to avoid the sentence of 25% of Spanish. Law that is now being analyzed by the Constitutional Court.

The General Secretary for Education of the Generalitat, Patrícia Gomà, explained that the decree is expected to be submitted for approval by the Government in April 2024.