The conflict of the language, with the imminent execution of the sentence of Castilian in the Catalan classrooms, generates a feeling of annoyance and disappointment in the cloisters who see as in other estates, judicial and political, discussions are held about the rights of the speakers with a lack of knowledge of the reality of schools. They are amazed at this “linguistic apartheid”.
With this, other debates are buried that should be, in his opinion, the ones that should consume energy: why are Catalan children – like those from the rest of Spain – less competent in their own language compared to other children from other countries? (PISA report)? How to transmit esteem towards Catalan and encourage people to live in this language? How should foreign languages be introduced to improve oral and written expression, a fundamental debate in a globalized world? And, in short, “if the students are competent in Spanish and Catalan when they finish ESO, haven't the teachers complied?
There is a broad consensus that the "center of gravity" of the system is Catalan, a language that circulates naturally in school buildings, conveying conversations between teachers, between teachers and students, and between teachers and families. And where Spanish is not residual because it flows, and, it seems, with increasing force, in conversations between students, in school materials and, according to the recent sociolinguistic survey by the Síndic de Greuges, in the classroom because the teacher uses this language or because students use it when working in groups. Of course it is in many playground games.
Faced with the imminent execution of the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJC), of November 2020, on 25% of Spanish in the classrooms, a school director from the Eixample, engaged in a complicated completion of the course, expresses that "the of the language, right now, is the least of my problems”. Others are more eloquent: "Ja s'ho faran", which denotes a worrying disaffection with the political class and with the Catalan administration itself.
“The legislative proposal –from ERC, Junts, PSC and En Comun Podem– to promote a law on the teaching of the official languages, and the decree law approved on Monday –in which the PSC is not present– has calmed the fear of the directors of center when assuming the conselleria the legal responsibility of the linguistic projects”, assures Francina Martí, president of the Associació de Mestres Rosa Sensat.
Among the directors who still feel unprotected with these measures, they argue that the directors are part of the "department" which is the one that, as a whole, assumes the responsibility of not applying percentages, according to the decree law. They also recall that the Government "already protected" teachers with an agreement published in early January that now "turns out that it did not protect us." Will a questionnaire of ambiguous questions do it now? The inspectors assure that "they will work side by side with the directions", according to Josep Maria Balda, president of Aiec.
The classrooms that apply 25% of Spanish by mandate of a sentence are 47 of the 4,500 Catalan educational centers, with 1.5 million students. To these families are added hundreds of other pro-Castilian associations. They argue that this cannot be excluded as a vehicular language. And the TSJC agrees with them.
In its resolution, it does not discuss linguistic immersion understood as the use of the language in which the student is less competent (more Catalan for non-Catalan speakers, more Spanish for Catalan speakers) keeping Catalan in the "centre of gravity". But it rejects the exclusion of Castilian as it is in the linguistic projects, framework document for languages.
In the dismissal of the appeal of the parents of Canet de Mar against the precautionary measures that require the implementation of 25% in one of the center's classrooms, a resolution known just yesterday, the judge denies the "supposed right of the students to a monolingual education vehicular”.
Another thing is the measure proposed by the court due to the lack of specificity of the Catalan administration to the inclusion –written– of Spanish in the classroom, 25%, or the teaching of one more subject in Spanish. "But it is that schools do not work with percentages," concludes Martí.
