Last week the ‘Minister’ for Education, Josep González-Cambray, flanked by the ‘Minister’ for Culture, Natàlia Garriga, surprisingly presented a plan to promote the use of the Catalan language in educational centers. The empirical basis of the plan is a survey carried out to 4th year ESO students, according to which the use of Catalan in the classroom seems to have decreased compared to the previous surveys of 2006 and 2013, both by teachers and studentsespecially when they interact with each other. Given the enormous commotion caused (there has been talk of immersion failure and dramatic calls have been made for the rearmament of language policy), it is urgent to contribute a bit of serene reflection.
In the first place, it is necessary to avoid projecting to the entire educational system the findings referring to the 4th year of ESO, which on the other hand are not based on observed facts but on the perception that a sample of students has of the use of languages.
Second, it is necessary to insist that the immersion system has not failed as a bilingualization mechanism. Every year, the Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu (CSASE) measures the linguistic competences of 4th year ESO students by means of specific tests. In 2013, the Catalan and Spanish scores obtained by the students allowed the CSASE to affirm that “the Catalan educational system provides a comparable connection of the official languages of Catalonia”. In 2021 (when the survey records the alleged ‘plummeting’ with respect to 2013), the Catalan and Spanish scores obtained by the students have led the CSASE to exactly the same conclusion as 8 years ago: “hi ha evidència per contin affirming that the Catalan educational system provides a comparable connection to the courses of the official languages of Catalonia in completing compulsory education “.
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On a more political level, some reflections are also urgent. First of all, it is necessary shun the temptation of easy demagogy. It is true that between 2006 and 2013 (a period that largely coincided with the left-wing tripartites), the Catalan indicators in the 4th year of ESO remained stable, while the “plummeting” would have occurred between 2013 and 2021, coinciding with independence governments. But it is not obvious that the sign of the governments of the day is the main explanatory factor for the apparent relaxation of linguistic uses in 4th year of ESO, which is probably due to deeper social causes.
Second, it is regrettable the precipitation from the Department of Education to launch its plan, which is based on data from a CSASE survey that has not even been published. In this sense, it is surprising that the trigger for the plan is a supposed state of affairs that in reality it is the plan itself that must establish. (At the press conference, González-Cambray explained that, as a first step, it is necessary to know what the linguistic reality of the educational centers is, based on the collection of “evidence”.) Considering the strategic role of the school in the linguistic policy of the Generalitat, and considering that the ‘councilor’ for Culture has announced in parliament the drafting of a National Pact for Language, wouldn’t it have made more sense for González-Cambray to have refrained from planning ‘hot’ and would have framed in the Pact the situation of Catalan in the educational system? In González-Cambray’s formulation, and especially in the interpretation that certain interest groups have made of it, there are very delicate aspects that need much more consensus of which the Government of Pere Aragonès seems willing to request. That teachers must use Catalan is what the law says and we could say that it goes with the salary, but hope that the students, when they interact with each other, also use it it borders swampy ground. Against the opinion of its detractors (of yesteryear and now), Catalan society has accepted the immersion system, but it is not evident that it is willing to accept anything similar to the installation of posters with the inscription “Parleu català” in the classrooms and schoolyards.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com