The High Court of Catalonia (TSJC) has obliged a school in Canet de Mar, north-east of Barcelona, to teach 25% of classroom hours in Spanish for one specific infant-level group, after one family requested this. According to the Turó del Drac school, the court ruling in fact stated that 50% of classes were to be in Spanish, but as an interim measure it has only imposed the level of 25%, until appeals are heard. Specifically, the teacher of this group of five year olds will now take classes in Spanish three afternoons per week, with two more hours in the morning on the other two days. Other families have already begun to mobilize in the face of what they consider a "violation" of the language model. The local council of Canet de Mar has also stated its support to the families, asserting that the measure is an "attack" on the Catalan education system. Since the 1980s, schooling in Catalonia has been based on immersion in the Catalan language, which is minoritized within Spain.
Us informem que la nostra escola ha estat denunciada per una família de P5A i a arrel d'això el TSJC ha dictat que les hores lectives en aquesta classe han de ser el 50% en castellà. Fil! 🧵
— El Turó en català! (@elturoencatala) December 2, 2021
Tweet by group "El Turó in Catalan!": "We inform you that our school has been subject to a complaint by a family in class P5A and as a result the High Court has ruled that teaching hours in that class have to be 50% in Castilian"
50% in Spanish
The Catalan court's decision follows closely on the Spanish Supreme Court's ruling in November requiring 25% of classes in Spanish. At the Canet de Mar school, a family demanded 50% of classes to be taught in Spanish, but this Thursday, the TSJC issued interim measures forcing the school to provide 25% of school hours in Spanish. The families plan to hold mobilizations in the coming days, although they have not yet specified details.
The school informed parents on Thursday of the changes that would be imposed on this group of P5 infants from next Thursday, December 9th. In fact, on that day, the first classroom hour in Spanish will be given, from 10am to 11am. For the rest of the days, the school has decided that in order to comply with the 25% level of Spanish classes, the five-year-olds will now find they are receiving classes entirely in the Castilian language on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Another hour will be inserted into the schedule during the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Protecting Catalan
This Friday, the local councillor responsible for education in Canet, Rosabel Madrid, encouraged families to keep alive the demand to "protect" the model of language immersion in Catalonia. Madrid recalled that the Catalan education system has been successful for many years and lamented that there are those who want to "change the teaching system". In this regard, one of the parents who has led the organization of the families, Marcos de Vera, explained that the general feeling is that the measure required by the court "violates the right to educate children in a model that allows them to grow with all the guarantees of development". De Vera also criticised the imposition and recalled that, as the Catalan immersion system has always demonstrated, all children learn Spanish anyway - since it is the overwhelmingly-dominant language in society.
Possible contagion
In the coming days, the Canet councillor in charge of education will call a special meeting of the municipal school board to discuss the new scenario with the educational community in order to "seek solutions to defend the educational model and Catalan in the classroom." The councillor fears that the precedent in this centre could have a contagious effect on other groups or other schools. The Catalan government's secretary general for education, Patrícia Gomà, explained this Friday that in the coming weeks, the inspectorate will draw up a plan to implement these precautionary measures, which will then be transferred to the school to be implemented. Gomà described it as "positive" that a group of families at the centre has made public their disagreement with the court's decision by creating a Twitter account to publicize their opposition.
Main photo: Children in class at the Mirades School / Sergi Alcàzar