The requirement to accredit an advanced level of Catalan and English for teachers could further deepen the problem of the lack of substitute teachers that is already being suffered in schools and institutes, as unions fear. The draft language regime decree that the Government wants to approve in the coming months, and that the School Council of Catalonia reviewed yesterday, requires that new teachers who access the pool of substitutes or enter as interim teachers have high language skills from of the 2025-2026 academic year.
The current draft decree includes an additional provision indicating that those teachers who aspire to enter the job pool for interim staff must accredit level C2 of Catalan and level B2 of a foreign language.
However, to be a civil servant or to access the Catalan educational system through a competitive examination, no level will have to be accredited (they are state civil servants). But they will have to pass a specific Catalan test equivalent to C2. In this case, nothing of the foreign language is indicated.
The unions believe that, given the meager pool of substitutes, especially in some areas such as mathematics, Catalan language or technology, the requirement to know English or other languages will be a greater obstacle to finding teachers to cover teacher losses.
It can also affect certain vocational training specialties that have professionals with high technical knowledge but who lack accredited linguistic skills. For this reason, they ask that the administration promote knowledge of languages, in an easy and accessible way, but that it does not require them from the outset.
Jesús Martín, head of vocational training at UGT, argues that, in theory, a 4th year ESO student leaves with a C1 in Catalan, and a high school student, with a B1 in English (or another foreign language). And that, by the end of university, it is assumed that it can have been expanded to higher levels. Therefore, the requirement would not constitute a general restriction.
“But the reality is that this is not the case,” says Martín. “The universities proposed that students, upon finishing their degree, accredit the B2 of a foreign language and, despite the fact that a 4-year period was established that was extended by a fifth, the campuses had to back down because the young people did not have that level,” he explains.
Therefore, he continues, although preparing youth in languages should be an objective of the educational and university system, this is not being achieved. "We ask that the linguistic skills that we believe should be had in compulsory education be promoted, but with courses in the same center, free of charge, during working hours."
For his part, the general secretary of Aspepc-sps, Xavier Massó, regretted on Monday that “peripheral requirements” of the department, such as teachers having the C2 level of Catalan or the digital skills certificate, “make entry difficult.” to the system of teachers of some specialties, who have “easy entry into private companies”, where “they find better working conditions”, as is the case of computer science and technology.
