The Department of Education has informed educational centers that the Catalan oral tests of basic skills, which were introduced last year for the first time, will not be carried out this year as planned. The suppression comes two months before the date of the 6th year of primary school and 4th year of ESO competitions.
Education sources consulted by La Vanguardia assure that it is a one-year postponement that occurs “exceptionally” due to “the overload of work” for the centers caused by the implementation of new diagnostic tests. And they affirm that the decision has been “consulted” with the Board of Directors. In addition to the basic skills, the department has introduced a test in 4th year of primary school and 2nd year of ESO. These are internal tests (corrected within the center).
The oral test was one of the star recommendations of the Government’s linguistic advisory council in light of the loss of the use of Catalan in schools. Guaranteeing, with an external evaluation, the oral level of Catalan and Spanish, also made it possible to demonstrate that Catalan students reached a sufficient level at the end of compulsory education. This silenced criticism from certain sectors against linguistic immersion and strengthened the defense of school language projects against court rulings.
JxCat has already asked for explanations for this “nonsense” that “breaks with parliamentary consensus.” It so happens that Minister Anna Simó attended Parliament on Monday to give an account of the measures adopted to improve the educational system and strengthen the Catalan language.
This is the first decision adopted by the new president of the Consell Superior d’Avaluació, Joan Cuevas, also general director of the department, and who replaced Carles Vega a few days ago after being dismissed for stating that there was an over-representation of immigrants in the PISA sample. .
