Linguapax
New Valencian government to eliminate education systems with Catalan as teaching language
The Spanish conservative-led Government of the Valencian Country has decided to eliminate the possibility of studying through the medium of Valencian (the local Catalan linguistic variety). After securing an overall majority in Valencia's Parliament, the Popular Party announced plans to introduce a trilingual teaching system, in which 33% of the classes would be given in Valencian, another 33% in Spanish and another 33% in English.
Until today, three different systems can be found in the Valencian Country: PEV (Program to Teach in Valencian), which targets Catalan-speaking pupils and uses Catalan as the teaching language; PIL (Program in Linguistic Immersion), which targets Spanish-speaking pupils and also uses Catalan as the teaching language; and PIP (Progressive Inclusion Program), which uses Spanish as the teaching language.
Pedagogical studies have shown that PEV and PIL assure that pupils will get a good command of both Valencian (which suffers a big pressure from Spanish) and Spanish languages.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the Government's plans on 18th June. The protest was called by the main Valencian cultural associations and was supported by opposition parties and trade unions. The demonstrators called for a system that guarantees multilingualism while keeps a predominant place for Valencian, the territory's own language.