In a special cabinet meeting this Monday, the Catalan government has passed the decree law that schools are to use to respond to the court ruling imposing a 25% Spanish language quota in classrooms. With just a few hours to go before the court's May 31st deadline for schools to comply with the ruling, the decree states the "non-application of numerical parameters, proportions or percentages" on the use of the language and makes it clear that it is the Catalan education ministry and, ultimately, the minister, Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, who assumes responsibility for the language project of each school in Catalonia. This decree, which was always intended as a part of the Catalan government's response to the court-imposed 25% quota, has been left as the key measure in force when the court ultimatum runs out, after the planned fast-track passage of the new Catalan language bill through Parliament was delayed.
The decree will be published in the next few hours in the Catalan government gazette, and from that moment will be in force, although it will have to be ratified subsequently in Parliament. The education department will send the school centres instructions on how to apply it - "very clear instructions, with very little room for doubt", said the spokesperson for the executive, Patrícia Plaja - and the schools will have to send their educational projects to the Catalan ministry, so that they can be ratified by the government within 30 days. The decree incorporates an in voce amendment made during the Catalan cabinet meeting in which it is made clear that if it is necessary to introduce changes in the project, the school centre must make the changes as soon as possible, within the next six months. Once the projects have been approved, the responsibility lies with the minster Cambray.
"This decree gives legal coverage to the centres and also by extension to the school principals in the face of the interference of the courts. The ultimate figure responsible is the Catalan education ministry and, thus, all responsibilities fall to the ministry and, ultimately, minister Cambray is responsible," the government spokesperson said.
The decree approved by the Catalan government today is in addition to the new law being processed by Parliament. The original plan to take urgency in the processing of that bill was interrupted when an initiative by the Spanish far-right party Vox, and supported by the PP and Ciudadanos, saw the bill sent to the Council of Statutory Guarantees, the Catalan organ that ensures the constitutionality of legislation, for study, and it has thus been delayed.
The government spokesperson repeatedly insisted today that the aim is to "adopt a stable regulatory framework that guarantees the achievement of the use of the official languages according to the needs of the students. For this reason, she affirmed that the vehicular language of the school centres is Catalan, and that the language projects of each centre must take into account the sociolinguistic reality and the diversity of the students and guarantee that at the end of their compulsory education all young people leaving Catalan schools have oral and written competency in both languages.
This diversity in the make-up of school population around Catalonia makes it impossible, according to Plaja, "for a monolithic regulation to be approved that would impose a uniform treatment of languages throughout the territory, disregarding social and cultural diversity."
"It will be the Catalan education department that ensures that all these projects conform to the legality and sociolinguistic reality of each centre, without ignoring that responding to the needs of students has been the priority so far and will continue to be," she insisted.
The spokesperson did not explain how the department will be able to take on the review of all the centres' projects in 30 days or whether it will have to have professional reinforcement to do so, nor did she explain whether core subjects will be introduced in Spanish, but she reiterated on several occasions that the aim is to respond to the "impasse" in which the government was placed, and would "overcome a meaningless judicialization", following the Catalan High Court (TSJC) ruling which imposes that all students must receive a quota of 25% of their classroom teaching in Spanish.