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<header class="gmail-article-header"><h1>Spanish or Catalan? Planned school policy shift sparks anger</h1><div class="gmail-news-feed_item-meta"><div class="gmail-article-meta">
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<li><div rel="author" class="gmail-author"><span class="gmail-by-text">By</span> The Associated Press</div></li>
</ul><span class="gmail-timestamp">MADRID — Feb 16, 2018, 12:28 PM ET</span></div></div>
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<p>
</p><p>
Spain's conservative government is considering changes to make it easier
 for parents in Catalonia to choose Spanish over Catalan as the main 
language in their children's schooling.</p>
<p>
The move, if confirmed, would go against decades of regional policies 
prioritizing the native Catalan language in classrooms while offering a 
limited number of lessons in Spanish grammar and literature.</p>
<p>
Supporters of an education in Catalan say the current system guarantees 
equal opportunities in a region where the native language is widely used
 both socially and professionally.</p>
<p>
Both Catalan and Spanish are official and spoken indistinctively, but 
regional and national authorities have clashed for years over which 
language should be used in teaching.</p>
<p>
Although current laws allow parents to choose, the default option is 
primary and secondary schooling in Catalan, with only limited numbers of
 Catalan families completing applications for an education in Spanish. 
University is generally taught in Catalan but students are allowed to 
take tests in the language of their choice.</p>
<p>
Friday's announcement comes amid the backdrop of an unprecedented 
political deadlock and after central Spanish authorities began running 
affairs in the northeastern region in response to October's illegal 
attempt to break away from Spain.</p>
<p>
Catalan separatists accuse the government of Spanish Prime Minister <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/world/mariano-rajoy.htm" class="gmail-r_lapi">Mariano Rajoy</a> of taking too far its temporary powers over the region.</p>
<p>
"We will do it without doubt," Education Minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo 
said Friday, referring to the proposed changes in education. "The right 
of parents to choose the working language for their children is very 
important."</p>
<p>
Catalan separatist politicians and some of the opposition parties at the
 national level reject the move. Former regional leader Carles 
Puigdemont wrote a tweet saying that the Spanish government "feeds 
Spanish nationalism with its right hand and tries to divide Catalan 
students based on their language."</p>
<p>
Puigdemont has been named as the separatists' candidate to form a new government in Catalonia but he can't return from <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/belgium.htm" class="gmail-r_lapi">Belgium</a>
 without facing arrest. He fled to Brussels in October to avoid a 
judicial investigation into his former cabinet's independence push.</p>
<p>
Rajoy, who rejects Puigdemont as Catalan leader, has vowed to keep 
running the region from Madrid until a new legal and effective 
government is formed in Catalonia. But that process remains in a limbo 
amid legal hurdles and factional infighting within the separatist 
parties.</p>
<p>
Friday's announcement was seen by many as a warning shot by central 
authorities to separatists, urging them to form a government without 
Puigdemont in order to recover Catalonia's self-government and avoid 
further reforms in the region's policies.</p>
<p>
But Mendez de Vigo, who also acts as the government's spokesman, rejected that claim.</p>
<p>
"This is only a measure on behalf of the right of parents to choose 
which language they want their children to be taught in," he said. 
"Nothing else."</p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies                     <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone:  (215) 898-7475<br>Fax:  (215) 573-2138                                      <br><br>Email:  <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a>    <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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