Supreme Court rules that schools in Catalonia must also use Spanish
The ruling means that all schools in the region of Catalonia must deliver at least 25% of classes in Spanish.
In many centres across Catalonia, Spanish is limited to 3 hours of teaching per week. Studying Spanish is exclusively linguistic-focussed, taught in the same way as a foreign language like French or English might be, instead of being used as a working language for general education.
The Supreme Court has now ruled that a minimum of 25% of class time must be delivered in Spanish. This requires that at least one ‘non-linguistic curricular area or core subject’ be taught in Spanish, in addition to Spanish linguistic classes.
This is a historic verdict that strikes a blow to the secessionist government’s attempt to install a Catalan-exclusive programme — known as linguistic immersion — in the region’s educational centres.
The decision upholds the earlier ruling of the Catalan High Court (TSJC) from December 2020. The High Court originally made a ruling for a 25% minimum for Spanish in 2014. However, the secessionist ERC party currently governing the Generalitat, Catalonia’s regional authority, has systematically blocked its implementation, supported by a series of secessionist parties in Parliament (including Junts per Catalunya, and formely Convergència and PDeCat).
In its most recent obstruction, the Generalitat appealed the High Court’s decision by arguing that Spanish is a ‘residual’ language in Catalonia. This is despite the fact that 48% of the region consider Spanish their mother tongue, compared to 38% for Catalan.
The Supreme Court has now rejected this appeal, marking an important first step in recognising the value and importance of Spanish as one of the region’s two co-existing official languages.
The decision was celebrated by the Assembly for Bilingual Education in Catalonia (Asamblea por una Escuela Bilingüe de Cataluña or AEB). The group rejected claims of linguistic discrimination against Catalan, noting that the real discrimination is against “those who want to study in a bilingual model with a balanced presence of Spanish and Catalan, but cannot do so” due to secessionist attempts to make Catalan the exclusive working language of the region.
Despite a widespread myth that Catalan is oppressed in Spain, the language enjoys both constitutional and political recognition. The Spanish Constitution, supported by over 90% of people in the region when ratified by referendum, recognizes Catalan as a co-official language in Catalonia and a source of the country’s cultural richness. The use of the Catalan language is widespread in Catalan institutions and administration, in practice being the main working language in the day-to-day running of government.
Nevertheless, the Catalan government’s nation-building agenda has long since pervaded in education, society and culture in an attempt to expel Spanish from the public sphere, particularly among younger generations. Their opposition to having just one-quarter of school time in Spanish is the latest example of this ongoing strategy.
Ana Losada, president of the AEB, noted that: “The ruling is very clear. [Spanish instruction] must make up 25% of time in core subjects, such as maths, history or science. The Generalitat cannot swap these out for physical education, chess, art or religion”.
In addition, Losada stressed that the AEB will be watching the application of the ruling closely, and that the movement enjoys support both from the courts and “from a majority of society that wants a bilingual or trilingual system.”
Ciudadanos will also be following the implementation of the decision closely. Since its founding, Ciudadanos has fought for the bilingual model to be used in educational centres in Catalonia. One of the party’s key positions since its inception has been its opposition of the current linguistic immersion model in schools.
The party has worked at all levels of government to reform the system to recognize the two official languages in Catalonia, Catalan and Spanish, as equal working languages in the region’s educational centres.
In Europe, Ciudadanos is working hard to inform other European countries of the challenges faced by students in Catalonia.
Jordi Cañas and Maite Pagaza have defended the right of Catalan students to study in their mother tongue in the committees of the European Parliament. This includes the Petitions Committee (PETI), in which Ciudadanos Europa supported a request submitted by AEB to the Culture Commission of the European Parliament, calling for equal use of Spanish and Catalan as working languages in education centres.
Maite Pagaza told El Catalán that “the discrimination and violation of rights in Catalonia on linguistic issues is unaceptable … the Petitions Commission has a general scope of recommendations and a general scope of interventions when something as sensitive as a child’s education is used by an administration, especially when that use is political, arbitrary and discriminates against individuals and groups”.
Ciudadanos will continue to work at the regional, national and European level to prevent secessionist groups using the working languages of education as an instrument in their political agenda. Spanish and Catalan must be a both recognised and respected in Catalonia.
