Catalonia’s Education Ministry and schools ready legal action

Teachers outraged by "unfounded" accusations against schools

Núria Martínez
2 min
Ensenyament i la comunitat educativa preparen accions legals

BarcelonaTogether with TV3 and the Mossos d'Esquadra, one of the objectives of invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution is to control Catalan schools. And after Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis --among other leaders-- claimed in an interview on French TV CNews that the Spanish language is "discriminated against" in Catalan schools, Catalonia’s schools and the Ministry of Education are considering legal action against the culprits of all of these attacks on the school system.

"Teachers are sick and tired of all the lying and the nonsense", said Francina Martí, President of the Rosa Sensat Teachers Association. She added that they are studying different options, from filing a legal complaint against the attackers to organizing various kinds of mobilizations. Along the same lines, the Education Ministry yesterday issued a statement warning that it would take all "necessary" legal actions against the authors of the "attacks" on the Catalan school system that are harming teachers. "To protect students, teachers, and the whole of the Catalan school system", the Education Ministry has asked its legal counsel to take legal action against members of the Spanish government and various political parties for "falsehoods and unfounded accusations".

A look at the data reveals that the basic competency evaluation tests for the fourth year of secondary school last year showed that students scored 77.2 out of 100 in Spanish, while in Catalan they scored 74.6. In the sixth year of primary school the results in Catalan (75.8) were higher than those for Spanish (73.4).

After presenting the results, Joan Mateo, President of the Education System's Assessment Council, said that in primary school the majority of elements that make up the students' knowledge are those acquired at school, which means that Catalan "plays a more important role". However, he continued, "this changes in secondary schooling, because there is expanded exposure to Spanish, as it is very prevalent in our society today". As to the university entrance exams for last year, the average for Catalan was 6.19, while that for Spanish was 6.25.

"Putting up with all the lies and slander against the schools isn't fair", insisted Francina Martí, who assured that they are receiving many requests from teachers demanding that they do "something". For the president of Rosa Sensat, "this is making the teachers' jobs more difficult", and she noted that Catalonia's educational model "has been ratified since the 1980s". "During all of the migratory waves the system has integrated students with a very broad-based educational system", said Martí, who added that there is "very high social cohesion".

Along the same lines, Jaume Trilla, Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Barcelona (UB), said that before launching accusations of this type "they should have to be argued over and proven". "Language immersion is one of the great successes, unquestionable and resounding, of the Catalan school system: it has achieved the goal that all children in Catalonia can actively use both Spanish and Catalan", noted Trilla, who added that it is "small-minded for someone to want to destroy the current model for ideological reasons".

Indignation at Somescola

Somescola (We are Schools), a coordinating body for school organizations, said "they have deliberately lied about the work that schools are doing in Catalonia". They believe that there is a clear desire to "discredit" the school system and "justify" a future Spanish intervention via Article 155. Also coming out in support of Catalan schools was the Catalan Federation of Parents’ Associations (FAPAC), which stated that the attacks on the schools system appear to be "an orchestrated campaign" with "partisan interests".

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