Only 2.8% of students in Catalonia did the selectivity in Spanish

only the 2.8% of the more than 40,000 students who appeared last week for selectivity in Catalonia have chosen to take the exams in Spanish. Meanwhile, the vast majority -97.2%- have opted for Catalan. The figure is slightly higher than that of last year, when the male and female students who opted for Spanish were around 96% in both the June and September calls.

“Catalan is the language of the PAU (university entrance exams) and it continues to be despite the interference that has occurred”, the ‘consellera’ of Research and Universitats has just explained, Gemma Geis, alluding to the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that declared the 2021 selectivity instructions null and void, when students were asked to say by show of hands who wanted the exam in Spanish. The court required that the tests should be delivered in the three languages ​​without identifying the students or noting the option chosen by each of them.

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After commenting that his department did not have to give explanations to the TSJC about the data on the use of Catalan and Spanish, Geis has asked that they stop interfering in education and in the university, creating “non-existent conflicts”. “We will continue to defend that Catalan is Catalonia’s own language, with an open gaze to the world”, she concluded.

The days prior to the call (June 14, 15 and 16), tests were carried out to test technology that would detect the chosen language options anonymously and efficiently based on QR codes and bluetooth geolocation, in collaboration with the Center for Telecommunications and Information Technologies (CTTI). Will they be applied again next year or will there be new methods? Faced with this question, the ‘consellera’ has replied that her department is also in charge of research and that, therefore, she does not rule out exploring new methods.