The Government appeals to the Supreme Court against the annulment of the decree that protects Catalan in classrooms

BarcelonaThe government filed an appeal on Friday to try to get the Supreme Court to overturn the annulment of the linguistic regime decree to protect Catalan as the language of instruction in schools and prevent the implementation of language quotas, according to information obtained by ARA. Last July, prompted by an appeal from the Assembly for a Bilingual School (AEB), the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) struck down more than a dozen articles of this regulation, including those establishing Catalan and Aranese as the languages of instruction in schools and also requiring that the language of instruction be Catalan.

In its July ruling – although it was not made public until September, just before Catalonia's National Day (Diada), by the AEB – the TSJC judges argued that the decree does not guarantee "a reasonable presence of Spanish in education" but, on the contrary, creates "a situation of imbalance in favor of the Catalan language." This is an argument that the government's legal services attempted to refute in the Supreme Court, as the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, announced three months ago. So, The executive announced that he would tour against the decision to prevent "the political use of language."

According to information obtained by ARA, the appeal has two main arguments. First, it addresses the terminological debate surrounding the "language of instruction." For the TSJC (High Court of Justice of Catalonia), the annulled sections of the decree never mentioned Spanish as the language of instruction, which "does not allow us to consider its adequate presence guaranteed." In its appeal, the Catalan government emphasizes that jurisprudence establishes that the fact of not referring to Spanish as the "language of instruction" does not imply per se their exclusion, "provided their adequate presence is guaranteed."

Secondly, and related to the above, the TSJC argued in its ruling that there was a risk that there would not be "control and evaluation instruments" to ensure that all students enrolled in Catalonia achieved competence in the Spanish language. The Generalitat, however, maintains that there are "sufficient mechanisms" to guarantee linguistic competence in Spanish and Catalan, regardless of the terminology used.

C2 for the teacher pool

In 2023, faced with attacks on the Catalan school model and a trickle of complaints for demanding 25% of instruction in Spanish in classrooms, the executiveHe set to work to make it a reality The decree, which forms part of Catalonia's education law and had been pending implementation since 2009, stipulates that language plans in schools and institutes cannot be changed mid-year, that "percentages, proportions, or numerical parameters cannot be applied in language teaching," and that Catalan—and Aranese, as it is called—must be used in public schools within the Catalan education system and in the reception of newly arrived students. In the case of teachers, the decree also aimed to raise the level of Catalan proficiency: it establishes that "from the 2025-2026 academic year onward," having a C2 level of Catalan will be a "requirement" for entering the teaching profession. Although it was not among the articles annulled by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), this article was provisionally suspended until last Friday, since a resource from Plataforma por la Lengua The fact that he has ended up being loved has reactivated the measure.

Thus, starting next academic year, a C2 level of Catalan will be mandatory for all substitute teachers and professors who wish to be included in the teacher pool. This requirement does not affect teachers who enter the education system through competitive examinations, as these exams were scheduled before the suspension of the article requiring this level of Catalan for teaching was lifted.