The Balearic Cultural Work asks the courts to provisionally suspend the language choice plan in classrooms that the Balearic Islands will implement starting in the next school year. The entity in defense of the language and culture of the islands has filed an appeal before the courts against this proposal since it considers it contrary to the current educational and linguistic normalization laws of the community. While the courts study the case, the OCB requests that its application be suspended.
The Balearic Islands will launch a pilot plan to which centers can voluntarily join, and will be able to teach core subjects in Spanish. This is a demand from Vox to the Government of Marga Prohens, which was made as an essential condition for the president to carry out the Balearic budgets for this year. The Balearic Government has reserved a sum of 20 million euros to implement this plan.
The OCB insists that this is a proposal that will imply linguistic segregation in classrooms. Antoni Llabrés, president of the entity, regrets that this plan leads to the separation of students based on language without any pedagogical criteria and insists that segregation is prohibited by the Linguistic Normalization Law and the Balearic Islands Education Law. He warns that this plan can create “linguistic subgroups, which will have consequences on school performance since it can benefit groups that receive additional funding by joining the plan.”
The OCB also warns that the plan violates the minimum decree in relation to subjects that must be taught in the Catalan language, and that applying it represents an interference in the pedagogical and organizational autonomy of the centers. The entity also states that it is an inequitable plan, since the additional provision of resources planned is intended only for those centers that already have adequate spaces and means, that is, those that can organize a double educational line in Catalan. and Spanish.
For the OCB, in no case is it a plan to improve the educational skills of all students in the Balearic Islands, but rather it is a plan that will create “inequalities and lack of equity”, situations that they want to avoid with the request for suspension. The OCB recalls that the educational community as a whole and the Education Council in the autonomous community have expressed themselves in a sense that coincides with that of the entity.
The entity gathered thousands of people a few weeks ago in Palma against this language choice plan and other educational and linguistic measures that Prohens has implemented, such as Catalan being from now on a merit and not a requirement in public health. As a result of this massive protest, the PP has announced that it does not plan to present new proposals on linguistic matters, despite the fact that Vox insists on demanding that Catalan no longer be a requirement to work in the public administration.
