[lg policy] Spanish Supreme Court declares that Spanish must also be a school teaching language

[Harold Schiffman]

Spanish Supreme Court declares that Spanish must also be a school
teaching language

Spanish Supreme Court declares that Spanish must also be a school
teaching language
CNA / Maria José Fidalgo / Gaspar Pericay Coll

Madrid (CNA).- The Spanish Supreme Court is pushing the Catalan
Government to make Spanish a teaching language in Catalan public
schools. The Court sentenced on an appeal by 3 parents who took the
Catalan Government to court for denying to school their children in
Spanish within the Catalan public education system. The Catalan
language is the teaching language in Catalan public schools, which
means that subjects such as mathematics and history are taught in
Catalan. Spanish is used in Spanish language classes. The Court's
decision, if it had to be implemented, may create 2 split language
communities, may put in danger the Catalan language, and may condemn
some social groups to be monolingual and thus to be in a clear
disadvantage regarding the bilingual individuals.

The current Catalan model has received international recognition by
UNESCO and the European Commission. It has been considered an
integration model that guarantees the complete knowledge of both
languages and does not create a split in language communities. The
Catalan language is in a weaker position in Catalonia, and some social
groups are not exposed to Catalan at all. School is the only contact
that some children may have with the Catalan language. If these
children were not taught in Catalan, they would not know the Catalan
language and would thus be at a clear disadvantage against students
that know both official languages. In addition, the social groups not
exposed to Catalan are mainly coming from working class environments.
Therefore, not using Catalan in schools would increase social
differences and inequalities.

The debate regarding the use of Catalan language in schools has mainly
been pushed during the last years from the Madrid political circle,
mainly used the Spanish nationalism. The model has been in place in
Catalonia during the last 30 years and the Constitutional Court
declared it Constitutional in 1994. In addition, Catalan pupils get
better results than the Spanish average in the Spain-wide final high
school exam; they also get better results in the Spanish language.
Therefore, the current Catalan school model guarantees the knowledge
of Spanish by all Catalan pupils, as well as Catalan. In fact, the
Spanish Constitutional Court underlined in previous sentences that the
Catalan model must guarantee that all the pupils are proficient in
Spanish.

Now, the effects of the Supreme Court’s sentence in Catalonia remain
to be seen. Spanish nationalist parties are happy about the sentence
and pro Catalan parties either see it as an unbearable attack or as a
mistake by the Spanish Supreme Court contradicting the Constitutional
Court. The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Party, Convergència i Unió
(CiU), which will rule the next Catalan Government, affirmed that the
Supreme Court had no jurisdiction on this matter, as the
Constitutional Court is the highest court regarding Autonomous
Communities’ rules. CiU reminded that the Constitutional Court had
previously declared the Catalan model to be constitutional. The still
Vice President of the Catalan Government, Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira,
from the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), considered the
sentence an “attack”. The still Catalan Minister for Education, the
Socialist Ernest Maragall, stated that the Court's decision would not
affect the Catalan education model, as it was previously recognised by
the Constitutional Court. In fact, trade unions, teacher associations,
parent’s associations, and the majority of the political parties
defended the Catalan model and criticised the sentence. The only
exception: the Catalan People’s Party (PPC) and the Anti Catalan
Nationalism Ciudadanos (C’s), which together represent 15.5% of the
MPs in the Catalan Parliament.

More on: Catalan Language Constitutional Court Language Immersion
Language Policy Language Rights Official Language School

http://www.catalannewsagency.com/news/society-science/spanish-supreme-court-declares-spanish-must-also-be-school-teaching-language



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