The "spirit" of Minister Isabel Celaá has inspired the future Balearic education law, which does not recognize Spanish as a vehicular language
.
The draft bill presented this Tuesday by the Minister of Education, Martí March, only gives this status to Catalan, which he defines as
"own language" and "backbone language of teaching
.
"
Castilian Spanish, the official language of the state, is reduced to the "teaching and learning language of the educational system", at the same rank as foreign languages.
This supposes a modification of the initial draft presented a year ago, which recognized Catalan and Spanish as vehicular languages.
Now "it has been adapted to the Lomloe regulations", justifies the minister
, referring to the so-called Celaá Law that recently approved
an amendment by the PSOE, ERC and United We Can
to remove Spanish as a vehicular language in education.
According to March, although the term "vehicular language" does not appear explicitly, the "philosophy in which the future Balearic education law is written is that" it can be taught both in Catalan and in Spanish.
"La Lomloe enables each CCAA to legislate differently (...) but removing the term vehicular does not mean that it cannot be taught in Spanish, Catalan or Galician or Basque", defended
the Balearic head of Education, who Yes he has referred to Catalan as "the vehicular language" of teaching.
Another of the changes
introduced at the last minute in the draft educational law due to pressure from Més per Mallorca - a government partner of the socialist Francina Armengol - is
the obligation to give at least half of the classes in Catalan, in compliance with the Decree of Minima.
This norm, approved by the PP in 1997, has allowed a de facto immersion language immersion in a large part of the public centers of the Balearic Islands, by not setting a maximum of hours of Catalan and allowing 100% of the classes in this language.
According to the new draft of the Balearic Education law, which is expected to be approved by the end of 2021,
"the conditions of use of languages in educational centers (...) must guarantee the use of the Catalan language, typical of the Balearic Islands , as a language of teaching and learning, at least in the middle of the school hour count "
.
Endorsement of the linguistic immersion model
Unlike the Decree of Minimum Standards, the future law goes further and makes it explicit that
educational centers will have autonomy to implement linguistic models of immersion in Catalan
-the Decree allowed it, but did not indicate it-, "so that the Catalan language ( ...) maintain the function of reference and social cohesion ".
He argues that this linguistic model "
compensates for historical and present situations of imbalance that place Catalan in a disadvantageous position"
.
The econacionalistas partners of Més per Mallorca had threatened the PSIB with voting against the new education law, which was already frustrated in the previous legislature, if Catalan was not shielded.
March had promised not to include percentages, but has finally given in to pressure.
March denies a change of criteria with respect to what he
promised a year ago when he assured that the future autonomous education law "would not contemplate percentages of each language"
to allow "a multilingual society."
Now its law speaks of reserving at least half of the school hours to the Catalan language, against the main opposition parties and a part of the educational community, who demanded a flexible linguistic model adapted to the sociolinguistic reality of the centers .
March also promised that the new regional law "would not be the law of any party but a law with which everyone feels minimally represented
.
"
Today he has recognized that he only has the endorsement of the Government partners (PSOE, Més per Mallorca and Podemos) and that it will be difficult to reach an agreement with the opposition.
He has winked at the PP, "a government party", although he
has ruled out any hint of rapprochement with Vox
, which he has referred to as "the party that wants to return powers to Madrid."
"Fundamental for social cohesion"
Although the minister has tried to balance and depoliticize it, his
regional secretary for University, Research and Language Policy, Agustina Vilaret, (Més per Mallorca) has not hidden that the future Balearic Education Law was born to "shield Catalan in the classrooms"
.
According to Vilaret, it
will give stability to the "linguistic model", since it turns a decree into law.
"The Catalan language is fundamental for social cohesion and, therefore, it is necessary that it have a structural role in the educational model," he claimed at the press conference alongside March.
While Vilaret, former ERC deputy in the Balearic Parliament, and his party (Més per Mallorca) celebrate this victory as their own, Minister March, elected position of the PSOE, asks for an "opportunity" for this law and assures that it
is
not
"a linguistic immersion regulations "and" educational centers will have the possibility to do their own language projects, being possible to give 50% Catalan, 40% Spanish and 10% English ".
The minister has also opened his hand to "be able to modify the linguistic project" in the event that the learning of Catalan and Spanish "becomes unbalanced", specifying that it will be the educational inspection who is in charge of the "detection" work.
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