The Supreme Court prohibits excluding Spanish from the signage of Catalan public schools and institutes

BarcelonaNew ruling against Catalan in schools. The Supreme Court (TS) has ruled that Spanish cannot be excluded from the signage of public educational centers in Catalonia. It does so by annulling a section of a document on the organization and management of educational centers for the 2022/23 academic year, which was approved by the Generalitat in July 2022 and stated that "the signage of the center's spaces is in Catalan, Occitan in Aran, and in Catalan Sign Language if applicable, which are the reference languages of the educational system." The Supreme Court rules against a judgment by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), following an appeal filed by the Assembly for a Bilingual School of Catalonia with the support of the Prosecutor's Office.

The Supreme Court considers that "the signage of educational centers is not irrelevant" so that "the exclusion of the use of Spanish" in public centers "negatively affects the vehicular language of teaching or, if preferred, restricts its normal potential." The court's decision annuls that specific document, but it remains to be seen what the real impact will be in classrooms and whether it implies the inclusion of Spanish on the signs of schools and institutes. The Department of Education is studying the scope of the ruling but already informs ARA that in the documents for the organization and management of centers for 2026/2027 "there is no reference to the signage of centers, only to current regulations." Furthermore, the ruling states that "it is contrary to the law to exclude Spanish" and not that there is "a duty to label in Spanish," so, according to the department, "it does not oblige labeling in Spanish."

The TSJC had excluded the languages of school signage from its ruling, understanding that it is not part of educational activity. Now, however, the Supreme Court rules that teaching is not confined to classrooms and books, but that the physical space where the activity takes place also has an impact. Following the Prosecutor's arguments, the court considers that the setting and landscape are part of the educational activity, as claimed by the Assembly for a Bilingual School, the Spanish nationalist entity that has been dedicated to judicializing Catalan in classrooms since 2013.

The ruling again recalls that "Spanish is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens" and, therefore, cannot be alien "to the regime of linguistic co-officiality" established by Article 3 of the Constitution. The ruling also differentiates between the signage of commercial establishments and educational centers, where Article 27 of the Constitution prevails over the right to education.

Òmnium Cultural has asked the Government to "shield the Catalan school model" and, therefore, the Catalan signage in schools. From its point of view, this is "a new unjustified attack by the judiciary, articulated from the most rancid Spanish nationalism". The Assembly for a Bilingual School of Catalonia has described the Supreme Court's decision as a "victory" because it "delegitimizes the policy that has sought to build an ecosystem in the educational centers of Catalonia from which Spanish would be erased".