The Ministry of Education plans to open the consultation on the basic language in schools in the Valencian Community of the November 26 to December 4.
This appears in the draft resolution of the ministry by which the procedure of consultation of families is called, within the framework of the law on educational freedom, to choose the basic language, Spanish or Valencian, in which your children will study from the academic year 2025-2026. The document will be negotiated next Tuesday at the sectoral table.
Among other questions, the administration’s proposal provides that the legal representatives of students registered in public and subsidized private centers can participate in this consultation, in all courses in the second cycle of early childhood education, in all course of primary education and in the first, second and third years of compulsory secondary education.
Also in nursery schools and early childhood and primary schoolsin the third year of the first cycle of early childhood education, when this is offered, provided that the registered pupils can continue their education in the same center in successive years without having to participate in a new process of admission.
Students with special educational needseducated in special education centers or in specific units of ordinary centers, will participate in the teaching-learning processes in the co-official language common to their family environment or, failing that, in the co-official language in which they have a wider domain, according to the election of its legal representatives.
Therefore, the legal representatives of these students will individually communicate the language of their choice to the teaching center and will not have to participate in the consultation.
November 14, 2024the provisional census of legal representatives of students entitled to participation will be published on the center’s notice boards. Interested parties can submit their claims until November 21.
The maximum deadline for publishing this definitive census will be until November 25 inclusive.
The planned schedule indicates that the consultation on basic language preference will be open for participation from today From November 26, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. to December 4, 2024 at 2:00 p.m..
The consultation will be done electronically. The consultation will be carried out for each student registered at the educational center in one of the educational levels, so the participation of a legal representative will be sufficient. The lists with the results will be made public on December 12.
After analyzing the project, the Union of Workers and Teachers of the Valencian Country (STEPV) He called it “nonsense” and announced that he was studying it from a legal point of view in case it “violates current legislation.”
Among the questions raised by the union, it warns that this procedure “will result in an additional volume of work for educational centers which will have to prepare all the documentation for families during practically the entire month of November.”
Likewise, they must guarantee a space equipped with a computer with an Internet connection and with measures that “guarantee freedom and confidentiality“for families who request it.
STEPV criticizes the fact that “if it is necessary, on the one hand, to guarantee the confidentiality of the vote, on the other hand, the result will be made public with the list of students who opt for one basic language or another, so that all the families know what happened. “Everyone voted.”
Concerning the census, the union organization indicates that all families of students currently enrolled in Preschool, Primary (including 6th grade) and ESO will vote, with the exception of 4th grade students.
4th year ESO students who opt for the baccalaureate will do so during the registration period, in accordance with the law.
“What we don’t know is what the current 1st year Baccalaureate students will be like next year, when they move on to the 2nd year of high school, which is nonsense.”
STEPV also observes that families of 6th grade students in public schools, who do not yet know in which institute their children will continue their studies, have the right to vote. They will also not know whether or not the basic language chosen in the 1st year of ESO will be offered in the institutes to which they apply during the admission period.
“It will be the first time in history that families will not know the language plan offered by the center in the 1st year of ESO”, specifies the union.
And he adds that if the student’s legal representatives vote for different languages, the vote is canceled and the allocation of a language will be “automatic”.
Also in case families don’t vote. From then on, “the Department transfers to the centers the decision to assign students to this or that language, another absurdity”, they say.
Another objection that the union puts on the table is that if there are surplus students in a certain basic language and there are places in a group of the other language, they will automatically be assigned to the group of the language they didn’t ask for.
In addition, as already provided for by law, there is a “difference in treatment” between predominantly Spanish and Valencian linguistic areas.
STEPV believes that the Ministry “In the former it is already obvious that no family will choose Valencian. and, if so, we will see how the administration responds to this request. »
Faced with what they consider to be “a pile of absurdities”, the STEPV will ask for the withdrawal of the law on educational freedom and of this consultation proposal, which they describe as “absurd”.
In the same spirit, the union will soon create the ‘Professorat pel Valencià’ network so that teachers can participate.”actively” of the campaign launched by the AMPA Gonzalo Anaya confederation to encourage fathers and mothers to opt for Valencian.
