The University of the Balearic Islands rectifies and stops discriminating against Spanish in the Selectividad

The University of the Balearic Islands has rectified and accepted the equality that Spanish and Catalan have in the university entrance exams, the so-called Selectividad. The Vice Chancellor for Students, Carmen Touza, has given instructions to teachers so that the statements and protocols of the exams are distributed in both languages. Before, the questions were delivered by default in Catalan and were only distributed in Spanish if the student requested it.. From now on, each student will be given the option to choose the language at the time of delivery of the tests.

This Friday, Vice Chancellor Touza held a meeting with all the proofreading professors and supervisors of the university entrance exams, which will begin on June 6, and told them that the distribution of exams with statements and protocols in Catalan and Spanish it must be carried out with “equality and neutrality, avoiding in any case the express and public request for exams in Spanish”, according to the association Escuela de Todos, promoter of a contentious-administrative appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands, not yet resolved and a petition in a separate piece of very precautionary, for violation of fundamental rights in this examination.

Now the supervising teachers must go table by table and give the exam in Catalan or Spanish, at the request of the student. The protocol, therefore, is as follows: the Spanish Language and Literature, Catalan Language and Foreign Literature and Language exercises will be written exclusively in the corresponding language. “For the rest of the subjects, the students will be informed, before the start of the tests, that the statements are available in Catalan and Spanish and will be distributed in Catalan or Spanish at the student's request”, say the new instructions. “These exams can be answered without distinction and by free choice in any of the two co-official languages of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands,” they add..

Previously, the rules said: “The statements and protocols of the rest of the subjects will be presented in Catalan. Although there will be a version translated into Spanish for people exempt from Catalan and for students who request it. These exams can be answered without distinction and by free choice in any of the two co-official languages of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands.

“No organizational variations”

Sources from the University of the Balearic Islands explain that they have agreed with the Ministry of Education “to facilitate statements in Catalan and Spanish” after the TSJB admitted the appeal “against the system used until now” and opened a separate piece. “This decision has been taken in anticipation that precautionary measures can be adopted in the coming days and in line with the decision adopted in other Catalan-speaking territories in which the courts ruled in favor of a similar appeal.. In this way, it seeks to guarantee that students can take the tests without organizational variations that may affect their performance,” they add.

During the meeting with the proofreading and supervisory teachers, the vice-chancellor read the appeal of Escuela de Todos and said that the request to annul the instruction that forced all the exams to be handed out in Catalan first and only hand out the exams in Spanish to students who expressly request it. It has done so on the recommendation of the legal services of the university.

Escuela de Todos has welcomed this change and trusts that the instructions will be translated into an official document. It also defends a unique selectivity test in all of Spain, with unified contents and correction criteria and ensuring bilingual statements in all the CCAAs with a double official language.

The Hablamos Español association had also spent the last few weeks trying to convince the university to change its instructions to facilitate the exercise for students, who have the Selectividad the next 6, 7 and 8, beyond the judicial dispute that has not yet been resolved. of June. “Students could already answer indistinctly in both Spanish and Catalan, but, as regards the language of the statements, “it gives the impression that students who prefer to have them in Spanish will have to signify themselves and ask for it expressly”, he told her. said the president of this group, Gloria Lago, to a representative of the campus commission that writes the instructions. Finally, the university has agreed to modify the wording of the sentence and now it clearly reflects that students will be able to choose between one language and another “without the prevalence of rights and without added formalisms”, assesses Lago.

Meanwhile, in Catalonia this iconic exam continues to be used for political reasons.. Although the High Court of Justice of Catalonia concluded last year that prioritizing Catalan in the distribution of the statements violated the fundamental rights of students, the Generalitat has complied half-heartedly. The student has to fill out an anonymous form, which is left on the table, in which he or she prioritizes Catalan. “If you want to receive all the statements in Catalan check this box,” it says. Then it is broken down by subject and there are Spanish and Catalan at the same level, but the first part induces to answer “in Catalan”.