Council of Europe Urges Spain to Improve Teaching of the language in Valencia

The report by a group of experts from the Council of Europe shows that Spain is not fulfilling its obligations with regards to minority languages. Catalan is being harassed in the educational system lead by the Spanish nationalist party PP. As the report says:

“The Law on the Use and Teaching of Valencian states that the division into two language areas should not hamper the activity of the Valencian Government to ensure that Valencian is taught in education and the rights of the speakers to use Valencian in the predominantly Castilian-speaking area.

“We urge the competent authorities to develop educational models in Valencian for the whole primary school curriculum as well as for secondary school. The competent authorities are also encouraged to make these models available throughout Valencia, where Valencian is spoken, and to clarify whether this is the case for the existing “full-immersion” model, including where pre-school education is concerned.

“The Committee of Experts understands that the three educational models in Valencia mentioned above are still currently in place. However, during the on-the-spot visit, the Committee of Experts was informed that the new Valencian Government put forward a draft decree on plurilingualism that would introduce compulsory trilingual education (33% of the classes each in Castilian, Valencian and English) into all schools in Valencia. This draft decree received a critical report from the Valencian Academy of Language and several universities. The Valencian Government has already created a network of plurilingualism by Order 19/2011 of 5 April. The schools that are part of this network introduce trilingual education. The share of subjects taught in each of those languages is at the discretion of each individual school. (...)

According to the information received during the on-the-spot visit from a Valencian language association, the Valencian authorities have amended the existing legislation to disallow the progressive inclusion of Valencian (PIP), restricting it therefore to only one subject taught in Valencian. The Committee of Experts asks the Spanish authorities to clarify this in their next periodical report. 20% of all pupils attending the PIP programme already receive only one hour of Valencian as a subject. This seems to be especially the practice in the predominantly Castilian-speaking areas.”

The European Council has been absolutely clear: “The Committee of Experts strongly urges the authorities to make available Valencian-medium education throughout the territory of Valencia where Valencian is used, and especially to ensure continuity from primary to secondary education.”