The Minister of Education, Universities and Employment, José Antonio Rovira, assures that knowledge of Valencian is “fundamental”, but “it cannot be the central axis for eight years” of this department, as, in his opinion, it happened in the previous government of the Botanic In this matter, he assures that his policy of action will be based on “freedom of choice”, which he has opposed to “imposition”.
“Those parents who want their children to study in Valencian will be able to do it and those who want them to study in Spanish will be able to do it and that is what differentiates us from Botánico. Compromís imposed only Valencian, not us” .
This has been stated by the head of Education, in an interview with Europa Press, in which he has disclosed some details of the measures he plans to adopt in linguistic matters.
In this sense, he has indicated that “a dysfunction” is currently taking place, since in some areas where children are allowed to be exempt from Valencian, it is at the same time forcing that, by virtue of the multilingualism law, the 25th % of the subjects are taught in that language.
Given this “inconsistency” he has ruled out making big changes at this time, being already in August and with the planning of the next school year already prepared. “There is no need to do experiments”, he stressed, while explaining that what is expected to be applied this course is “some temporary measure of specific modification” so that only in these Spanish-speaking areas the school councils of the centers can reduce that percentage.
And, furthermore, throughout the year, the Ministry will be analyzing the Plurilingualism Law to “make the changes that we believe must be necessary, based on a principle that is what we propose: freedom of choice because parents must being able to choose in which language their children study”.
“The Valencian subject is there and we defend it, but the fact that other subjects are taught in that language depends on the will. And we will do what the PP did when it governed for many years: that those children who studied in Spanish , studied in Spanish, and those children who wanted to study in Valencian were guaranteed to study in Valencian”, he summarized.
Asked if this could mean a return to the line system, he answered “not exactly” and pointed out that the specific formula is being studied. “
On whether he fears that these measures will be interpreted as a setback in the teaching of his own language, Rovira has defended that “there is no recession because those parents who want their children to study in Valencian will be able to do so”. “So, what step back is there?”, he has raised
For Rovira, the model that Compromís has advocated was on the “path” of “the linguistic immersion of Catalonia, the Catalan Countries and all this history”. On this point, he has affirmed that “nationalist parties, when they enter governments, always choose Education because it is where they can try to make social changes.”
“Logically -he continued- our model has nothing to do with that. We defend a Valencian Community with its own identity, that we have common ties with Catalonia, yes. And with the Balearic Islands too. We all belong to the Kingdom of Aragon. And That is called history, not politics,” he added.
Asked if in the case of the government agreement in the Valencian Community Vox came to ask for the Department of Education, Rovira has assured that “President Mazón’s idea was for the PP to keep these powers, which are very important for the Party Popular”. “And we believed that we, as the much larger force in this coalition, should have a choice, and one of the things that was chosen is that education should be in our hands.”
With regard to the learning of foreign languages, his will to increase the training of teachers in English has advanced, since, “sometimes, the necessary hours are not given due to lack of teacher training”. “And that’s where we have to influence.”
Another of the minister’s priorities is to return to the Educational Inspectorate “many of the functions that the Botànic had taken away from them in recent years” and he has given the determination of templates as an example.
The new minister has guaranteed that this service will be strengthened in order to free the centers from excessive bureaucratization. “What we intend – he specified – is to recover the fundamental role of the Educational Inspectorate as the ordering axis of the system and, likewise, we want to eliminate this administrative work for the centers, which must be educational centers, not processing centers” .
