Spanish Education Reform Would Suit Dictator Franco

Parents, teachers, civil society and Catalan government all oppose Spanish Education minister Wert's education reform.

Catalan education association Somescola considers the Wert education reform made public yesterday would be in keeping with the times of the anti-Catalan Franco regime.

The Catalan education platform Somescola considers the educational reform put forward by Spanish minister José Ingacio Wert is inspired by Franco epoch classrooms. “This law takes us back to a pre-democratic past”, says the collective, which has called Catalonia to rally in defence of Catalan schooling, accusing the Spanish Popular Party government of assailing Catalan language immersion in schools and of “doctrinal control” in education. “The gravity of this is enormous as never before had they proposed wiping out thirty-five years of Catalan democratic schooling”, said the association.

The chairman of the Federation of Secondary School Parents Associations FAPAES, Pere Farriol, warned that “This attack upon Catalonia, our language and our customs cannot be tolerated”, adding that the organisation would stand shoulder to shoulder with whomever necessary to halt this deplorable attack.

The Primary Schools Parents Association FAPAC leader Alex Castillo pointed out that students in monolingual areas of Spain did no better in Spanish language than children in Catalonia, and sees pathological traits in the minister's actions, deploring the “unhealthy obsession” with the language, going against expert evaluations of the system in Catalonia.

As to the position of the schoolteachers in Catalonia, the major union, USTEC, trusts the Catalan government will refuse to apply the new Spanish legislation. The union spokesperson, Rosa Canadell, considers “dismantling immersion practically impossible”, but hopes that Irene Rigau, the Catalan Education minister, or whoever takes her place in the forthcoming government, will simply not apply the reform.

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