Government guarantees schooling in Spanish for Catalunya pupils

Minister for education Íñigo Méndez de Vigo says his department is working on 'the formula that best guarantees and combines' the regional curriculum in Catalunya with the choice for parents to have their children taught in Castilian Spanish.

He is attempting to smooth over the controversy which arose today after the teachers' union AMES and the Catalunya Civil Society called for forms for next year's school places to include a box for parents to tick if they want an education for their kids in the national, rather than regional language.

Even if they are taught in Castilian Spanish, children will still learn catalán, meaning they will not be barred from a future working for the public sector on linguistic grounds, and pupils taught in catalán have a set number of hours per week learning Spanish.

“How we are going to do it is something we are looking into, but there's no doubt we are going to do it,” Méndez de Vigo stressed.

“Our government has been against the way Catalunya has conducted the requirement to guarantee an education in Spanish and, accordingly, we now want to amend the way they do so, but that does not mean there will be any changes in Catalunya's educational curriculum per se.”

Educational models are set by the national schools law, the LOMCE, passed by the current national government, but Catalunya's regional education law was set in 2009 and no central Parliament is permitted to amend it, says Méndez de Vigo – only Catalunya can do so, meaning the Spanish State does not intend to, and is not even able to, undermine the regional government.

But with the State having triggered Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, placing Catalunya under national control, it means Spain can enforce the request for language choice made by a high number of parents and teachers.

Also, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the regional High Court of Justice in Catalunya have all held that a minimum of 25% of classes at State-run schools have to be in Castilian Spanish.

But only around a dozen schools in the region do so, and even then, after parents called for them to do so.

The subjects taught in Spanish may be chosen by the schools in question, provided the pupils whose parents asked for this language to be used are in these classes.

AMES had started a petition on Change.org for a tick-box option for teaching in Spanish upon request but, despite the nearly 8,000 signatures collected to date, Méndez de Vigo says he wants a 'collective, not individual' solution.

Deposed regional president of Catalunya, Carles Puigdemont, accuses the national government of 'attempting to divide pupils by language', whilst leader of the centre-right Ciudadanos at national level, Albert Rivera, says teaching across the board should be exactly 50% in either language.

The LOMCE states in Article 38 that if parents wish for their children to be taught in Castilian Spanish in any region which has a second, co-official language, this must be guaranteed and, if a State school within the catchment area willing to do so is not available, the regional education authorities must fund that child's education at a private school.