Educational Apartheid: Languages in schools

It's the day of the "vuelta al cole" next September. By the school gates you wave goodbye as junior enters primary school for the first time. A tear in the eye but joy in the heart, as you will have decided that junior is to be taught in ... taught in which language?

From the start of the next school year there will be free parental choice as to the main teaching language at the voluntary nursery level and at primary level, but not at secondary level. This will be in line with the election manifesto of the Partido Popular government. After a fashion. There was meant also to have been free choice in secondary schools. There still will be, but not yet. It's all a question of money.

Electoral promises are fine, but they do require that the money exists to back them up. The Círculo Balear, the fiercely anti-Catalan and staunchly pro-Castilian organisation, reckons there is the budget, but then it probably would. The government says, however, that the education ministry needs to shed a 35 million euro debt before secondary schools are included. So this - 35 million, if you follow the government's logic - is what it costs to be able to offer secondary school teaching in the language of parents' choice.

The budget for education, and the ministry includes culture and university, will be down in 2012 by 55 million euros. With its budget already under strain, it could do without the complication of administering this choice. Because complication is what it is. The education minister, Rafael Bosch, has yet to decide exactly how the choice model will operate, though it would seem that he has in mind a mixture within the same school.

Let's get this straight, because I am struggling here and you may be able to help. Bosch has, mercifully it would seem, dismissed the possibility of separation into different centres along language lines, but he appears to be saying that there will be separate classes within one school for those being taught in Catalan or Castilian. Have I got this right? Because if I have, it may be good for parental choice but isn't when it comes to how schools function.

Schools are terrible places when it comes to "being different". And what you would arrive at with this system is one of apartheid based on language choice. The potential for us and them should not be underestimated.

Moreover, it is an us and them that has the potential to carry on beyond school years. If you want to create a situation of tension between Catalan and Castilian speakers, where better than to foment it than in schools. The notion of splitting along language lines goes against principles of child socialisation that schools should be aiding, not inhibiting.

The Círculo Balear believes that the PP has bowed to pressure from the "anti-democrats of the Catalanist minority", which it almost certainly hasn't. Give the PP its own fully free choice and it would probably happily get rid of Catalan from schools, but it is enforcing the provisions of the 1986 act that recognised the right of language choice, but which has since come to mean Catalan taking precedence.

The Círculo, however, may not be right in assuming that an overwhelming majority of parents want Castilian teaching. Back in June it was reported that parents, for the most part, were happy enough for Catalan to prevail. In which case, they'll be able to choose for it do so.

Apart from a budgetary constraint, the government's position may have been watered down (albeit perhaps temporarily) by the presence of Sr. Bosch, described as a moderate when he was made education minister.

But this moderation, while it ensures a greater role for Castilian while maintaining Catalan, creates a different problem; two in fact - greater expense plus the linguistic apartheid. The cost of education will have to increase, though not by as much as Sr. Bosch might have wanted, as his plan to add an hour to the school day has had to be held back for now because of lack of money.

Accommodating the two languages, to be fair to the government, is a thankless task. The purely pragmatic approach would be to make Castilian the language and make Catalan a language taught in specific lessons. Where many Catalan-preferring parents would probably have to agree is not with the Círculo Balear's posturing but with the notion of greater opportunity arising from Castilian.

But pragmatism is too simple when set against culture, history, arguments and tensions. Unfortunately, the government, while it is right in its free-choice policy, might find that it ends up exacerbating these tensions.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.