The new temporary teachers or those appearing for examinations in Catalonia will have to certify the C2 level of Catalan from the 2025-2026 academic year. This is stipulated in the draft of the new decree on the language regime being prepared by the Department of Education, which also regulates the use of Catalan and Spanish at school. Catalan will be the vehicular language and also of communication between families, while Spanish will be curricular.
In this way, and according to the draft decree presented yesterday by Education, interim teachers, substitutes, new directors and appointments that entail a change of position or promotion will have to certify the C2 level. Foreign language teachers will be required to accredit level B2 in primary and C1 in secondary education.
In addition, the new decree formalizes that Catalan will be the vehicular language in educational centers, but also for communication with families, with the exception of newcomers who do not know the official languages. The text points out that the use of Catalan should not be the same in all centers and points out that in those where “a lack of oral and written skills is detected… immersion programs must be applied linguistic”. In this way, each center will have to stipulate the presence of the two official languages ??depending on its sociolinguistic situation.
For its part, Spanish will be considered “curricular and educational use for some specific contents”.
All these measures are framed within the decree of the language regime of the education system, which specifies how to approve, evaluate and review center language projects (PLC) in Catalonia, to “give security” to schools and which reinforces that the department is the person responsible for these projects.
In a press conference, the Minister of Education, Anna Simó, reported that yesterday the public information procedure for this decree began, which will extend until September 15 “so that everyone can make their contributions and that a robust and consensual text emerges”.
Simó affirmed that this decree is part of the Catalan language promotion plan, in compliance with the wishes of the monographic debate on Education, so that “Catalan is an axis from which the center’s educational project is based”, and deploy the second title of the Catalan Education Law (LEC). This decree foresees that those responsible for the educational projects of the schools “are not the managements of the centers, but the Department of Education”, as well as ensuring that the language projects cannot be changed with the course started and the vehicularity of Catalan in the classrooms
The impetus for this decree arises after Thursday the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) endorsed 25% of Spanish in three classrooms in schools in Catalonia, asking that at least one core subject, in addition to Spanish, be taught in Spanish.
In this regard, the Secretary General of Education, Patrícia Gomà, explained that it is expected that the decree will be submitted to the Government for approval in April 2024, and when she was asked if they had received the resolutions of the Last week’s TSJC pointed out that “they have not yet been notified” to the department.
For his part, Simó assured that “this decree should have existed several years ago”, since it develops the second title of the LEC, and also adds the decree law of Catalan in classrooms that rejects percentages and the law 8/2022 which is pronounced in the same sense.
The ministry, in its plan to promote Catalan, also plans to increase the reception resources for newly arrived students from 2024, since, according to Simó, “it is one of the great challenges of the education system”, and a plan will be made of shock training for tutors of reception rooms and development of new materials.
