The Governing Council of the University of Valencia has approved a very harsh report against the so-called educational freedom law that the parliamentary groups of PP and Vox have registered in Les Corts Valencianes within their “reformist agenda” that has generated so much rejection in the opposition . The report to which La Vanguardia has had access points out that “from the triple sociolinguistic, pedagogical and legal perspective, the proposal constitutes a clear setback in terms of the organization of plurilingual education.”
In the conclusions, the document emphasizes that “it is an unnecessary, discriminatory and recessive norm”, which, they add, “breaks the consensus formed around the Llei d’Ensenyament i Ús del Valencià over forty years.” In this sense, they reiterate that “by invoking the supreme value of freedom of linguistic choice, the norm in practice corners Valencian speakers, who will not be able to assert their rights.”
The letter warns that the data point to a “sociolinguistic emergency situation”, so the proposed law “could be a coup de grace against the own and historical language of Valencians and condemn it, in a period of time.” brief, in a residual state of uncertain outcome.”
Faced with this situation, the experts from the Department of Linguistic Rights of the UV, the Language and Linguistic Policy Service of the UV or the Department of Catalan Philology and the Interuniversity Institute of Valencian Philology recommend the withdrawal of the legislative proposal. After that, they demand “the opening of a calm, thoughtful and constructive dialogue process between all the political, social and academic agents, in order to relaunch a new consensus in favor of Valencian and the arrangement of educational plurilingualism in our country”.
The authors of the report do not agree with the arguments of the defenders of the norm and point out that “far from contributing to an equivocal idea of ??individual and collective freedom, it will open a social fracture between territories and groups of speakers.”
Regarding the freedom of parents, the document from the University of Valencia counterargues that “those responsible for the students can choose the education model, but they cannot determine either the linguistic instruments, the educational content, or the didactic and evaluative procedures, which They are the responsibility of the educational authorities and, ultimately, of the teachers, as supported by extensive jurisprudence.”
