Galician civic organizations to appeal against decree on multilingualism

26.05.201016.15h

A Mesa pola Normalización Lingüística and the CIG-Ensino trade union will take the measure to court · The decree, which is an initiative of Núñez Feijóo’s Galician autonomous government, was issued last week on the Galician Official Gazette (DOG) · The decree establishes the language of each subject in primary and secondary education, and allows parents to decide the main language of education within the classroom.

The publication of the Decree 79/2010 on Multilingualism in non-university education triggered an adverse reaction among Galician civil society. Both A Mesa pola Normalización Lingüística and the trade union Confederación Intersindical Galega (CIG-Ensino) announced they are to submit an administrative appeal against the decree at the Galician High Court of Justice.

The president of A Mesa, Carlos Callón, said the appeal seeks to avoid the exclusion of Galician in any subject and to assure a minimum of hours in Galician in preschool education.

Spokespersons of CIG -the largest trade union in Galicia's education sector- deemed the decree as the "greatest blow" to Galician language. They further added it "disdains the work done by teachers and their pedagogic discernment".

The decree sets the teaching language for each subject. In primary education, maths is to be taught in Spanish, while natural, social and cultural sciences will be Galician-medium subjects. As regards secondary education, Spanish will be the language of maths, technology, physics and chemistry, while natural and social sciences, biology and geology are kept to Galician.

To A Mesa, the decree "prohibits" to study maths, technology and physics in the country's own language. The organization considers the decree has been drafted "behind the educative community's back" and warns that it infringes the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages.

The role conferred to parents is another source of controversy, as the decree allows them to choose the "predominant mother tongue" in each school, leaving the teachers without a say in the matter. According to the legislation, parents or pupils' guardians must be requested to declare the student's mother language at the beginning of the year. The main language of the school is to be decided depending on the results.

CIG trade union thinks the decree is a legal device to "undermine the teacher's authority" to determine the sociolinguistic condition of each educative centre. It puts the performance of article 14 of the Linguistic Nomalisation Act at risk, their officials added. Article 14 establishes that proficiency in both Castilian and Galician must be guaranteed at the end of compulsory education.

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