Legal and political row over the use of Spanish in Catalan schools

A row over the use of the Spanish language in schools in Catalonia has threatened to overshadow the start of the school year.

Primary and secondary school pupils in the north-eastern region of Spain begin classes this week. But a long-standing dispute between the pro-independence Catalan government and those who want children to speak more Spanish in classrooms has become a fierce political and legal battle.

The clash centres on a ruling by a Catalan court, which was confirmed by Spain’s supreme court last year, that at least a quarter of all classes in Catalan schools should be held in the Spanish language. That followed decades of a “total immersion” system whereby the Catalan language was used in all classes in schools, except when Spanish or foreign languages were being taught.

The Catalan courts first set the 25 per cent minimum for the use of Spanish in 2014, but the rule was only used in specific schools where parents objected to the total immersion system. The more recent ruling stated that all schools in Catalonia should follow this guideline.

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The regional government and supporters of the immersion system say it is an effective way of encouraging the integration of migrant children from other regions of Spain and abroad into Catalan society. They also say that only a few dozen families have ever formally objected to the system.

Critics, however, say that the immersion project has been a propaganda tool for Catalan nationalism and that it marginalises children and parents who want more Spanish in the curriculum.

The Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, has said the court rulings violate his region’s legislation. In May, his government went further, passing a new regional law via decree which prevented percentage quotas from being used to delimit language use in schools.

Last week, the Catalan regional minister for education, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, said “no classroom in this country will apply the 25 per cent Spanish language [rule]”. He added that the Catalan total immersion system “is what happens in Catalonia when we work together in the same direction.”

The Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez, who relies on the parliamentary support of Mr Aragonès’s Catalan Republican Left (ERC), has sought to avoid getting involved in the fracas. Mr Sánchez’s Socialist Party has traditionally endorsed the Catalan-only system and his government has refused calls from the political right to appeal against the new Catalan regional education law.

However, the clash is far from over. The civic organisation Assembly for a Bilingual Schooling in Catalonia said that it will take legal action against Mr Gonzàlez-Cambray and any head teachers of schools where the 25 per cent rule is not applied.

“Years fighting to ensure that your children can also study in Spanish,” another campaign group, School for All, wrote on Twitter. “Putting up with the pressure of schools, nationalist harassment — and now that right is taken away from families.”

On Monday, a man appeared in court to face charges of having bullied on social media a family in the Catalan town of Canet de Mar which wanted its child to be educated in Spanish. In his defence, he said that the social media posts, one of which said he had prepared “the flesh of a Spanish-speaking child” to eat, were making fun of the hysteria of right-wing Spanish unionists.

A demonstration demanding that the 25-percent rule be reinstated is due to be held in Barcelona on September 18th.