The teaching of Valencian in the educational system of the Valencian Community will soon become one of the issues that will create the most debate in Valencian society. Among other things, because Carlos Mazón’s executive aims to establish a notable change in the model promoted by the Botànic for multilingualism in schools and, also, in the possibility of reinforcing the exemption of Valencian in the Spanish-speaking areas of Valencia.
Yesterday the new Minister of Education, Universities and Employment of the Generalitat Valenciana, Jose Antonio Rovira – who was already a high-ranking officer in this department in the days of the PP – emphasized that one of his priorities will be to change “some aspects” of the Multilingualism Law, the Botanic’s star law on educational matters that replaced the first decree that the courts overturned and that is currently in force.
The regulations establish a minimum of 25% of teaching in Valencian (and in Spanish, compared to 15% in English). This made it necessary to teach more than one subject (including Valencian Language and Literature) in the centers of the Spanish-speaking areas, whose students can request an exemption to not take the exam in that subject.
Rovira warned that “in the short term there is an inconsistency in that young people from the areas where the Llei d’Ús i Ensenyament exempts Valencian at the same time, by the Multilingualism Law, are forced to give subjects in a language from which they are exempt”. A circumstance that the head of Education described as a “hole in the law that will have to be solved as immediately as possible.” “Another thing – he qualified – is to make a global approach to reform that law.”
The new minister, from Alicante and a person of the highest confidence of President Carlos Mazón, also indicated regarding the percentage of the different languages ??in the centers, that the centers and school councils are “the ones that best know what the needs of the place are, with which they will continue to have a lot of weight”.
However, he reiterated that his party’s commitment is to defend the right to choose the education and language of their children. In fact, in the government agreement signed by the PP (the party to which Rovira belongs) and Vox, point 27 of the same established that the new executive would guarantee “freedom of education, free choice of center and free choice of the language of teaching between the two official ones at all educational stages”.
From this statement we can deduce his commitment to the system that was in force at the time of the PP and that went through the coexistence of lines in Valencian (where the majority of subjects were in this language) and lines in Spanish (which became the vehicular language of teaching). Despite this, the model for which the PP will bet, with the pressure of Vox, is still not defined.
