The Popular Party of the Balearic Islands and Vox Baleares have closed this Friday an agreement for the approval of the next budgets of the Balearic Government that provides for the choice of the first language of schooling and its extension in all educational stages before the end of the legislature, without excluding any of the co-official languages, included in the investiture agreement. The Minister of Education, Antoni Vera, has indicated that the model will be voluntary and there will be no segregation by language.
PP and Vox point out in a statement that the agreement provides for the choice of first language in primary education in all educational centers, in accordance with current regulations, in the second cycle of Early Childhood Education and in the first cycle of Primary Education from next school year "in the centers where it is possible", and its extension throughout the legislature to the rest of the centers, "always respecting the autonomy of the center and without entailing segregation due to language."
For the rest of the educational stages, centers will be able to voluntarily take advantage of a pilot plan to offer families the choice of first language of instruction in non-linguistic subjects in the scientific and social field, "through different organizational and pedagogical measures." Likewise, the autonomy of the center will be respected and will not entail segregation based on language.
The application of this voluntary plan will be the next academic year for Infant and Primary and the following year, for Secondary. "The feasibility of subsequently including the Baccalaureate and Vocational Training stages will be studied. The centers that take advantage of this specific plan will receive the financial, human and material resources necessary to carry it out," the text adds.
The PP-Vox agreement has upset the educational community because it has not been informed in advance of the agreement. The president of the Government, Marga Prohens, had this morning summoned 35 entities in the sector, which have stood up and left the Government headquarters when it was learned that the agreement with Vox had already been signed and there was no negotiating capacity to introduce adjustments.
Following this pact, the Prohens Government has presented a request so that the spending ceiling can be approved in a session of the Parliament on Tuesday of next week. The approval of the Budgets was blocked by Vox's refusal to approve the spending ceiling if there was not previously an agreement on educational matters. One of the eight Vox deputies in the Parliament, who did not agree with this pressure measure, left the group due to these discrepancies.
