The PNV and the PSE are bringing closer positions in order to definitively agree on a new Education Law, while at the same time distancing EH Bildu from the agreement. The two formations have reached a minimum agreement on one of the Gordian knots of the future norm: the weight of the two co-official languages and English in Basque Education. The Jeltzales and the Basque socialists have agreed, within their battery of amendments to the bill, an express mention of linguistic models, something that would protect the maintenance of this formula in force for four decades and that presents families with the choice between three linguistic alternatives.
The amendments agreed upon by the PNV and the PSE on linguistic matters are an example of political flexibility. On the one hand, the “vehicular character” of all learning languages is pointed out, although there is also talk of “a multilingual system whose axis is Basque.” On the other hand, it is stated that the weight of languages “must be structured in the linguistic project of each center”, although it is noted that it will be done “based on the system of current linguistic models”.
The PNV emphasizes that, beyond the reference to educational models, the key will be that each center will have autonomy to design its linguistic project based on its sociolinguistic reality, but always with the objective of meeting the linguistic objectives: B2 in the two co-official languages at the end of compulsory education and at least B1 in a foreign language. That is, each center will choose how many subjects it teaches in each language, but guaranteeing knowledge.
The PSE, meanwhile, emphasizes that it has managed to maintain the current model system: model A, today a minority, has Spanish as the vehicular language with Basque as a subject; in B the subjects are taught in both Basque and Spanish; and in D, Basque is the vehicular language with Spanish as a subject (the three models include, in many centers, subjects in English).
This agreement between the PNV and the PSE, in any case, distances EH Bildu from the agreement, since the nationalist coalition defends a single model with Basque as the axis, an alternative similar to the Catalan immersion system. Podemos was also in favor of a single model with Basque as the main language, although the purple formation left a consensus months ago that in the initial drafting of its bases had the support of 90% of the political representation in the Basque Parliament. At this moment, only the support of the PNV and the PSE seems guaranteed.
