Reactions to the agreement exempting teachers from Catalan: "This is already being done"

PalmThe reactions in the agreement between the PP and Vox to eliminate the Catalan requirement In certain teaching positions described as "very difficult to fill," among other public sector positions, action has been swift. The measure primarily affects areas where finding teaching staff is challenging and is intended to expedite immediate hiring. According to Vox spokesperson Manuela Cañadas, the modification, without language restrictions, would allow these positions to be filled more quickly. According to data provided by the Ministry of Education, there are currently 877 positions in this situation: four in Mallorca, 138 in Menorca, 549 in Ibiza, and 186 in Formentera.

STEI has reacted critically to the agreement. Regarding Cañadas' statements, the union pointed out that the mechanism he defends already exists: "It's curious that Cañadas is saying this, because it's already being done. That is, if a teaching position isn't filled, it goes to the urgent list, and there, the Catalan language requirement or the teacher training master's degree are waived," in the words of the head of language normalization, Carles Cabrera. Furthermore, they criticized what they consider a worrying hierarchy of priorities: "Cañadas seems to care a lot about the master's degree and not at all about Catalan; to make it even more difficult, we could also bring in Portuguese or English people who don't know Spanish, or is that not possible?" Finally, the union called the proposal "absurd," because it's "entering the Vox camp, which is just a trip back in time to pass off a Francoist party as seemingly democratic." Language as a "battleground"

The SIAU union has also expressed its concern about the ideological nature of the measure. "Vox's obsession with eliminating Catalan from education seems more ideological than pedagogical. Instead of focusing the debate on educational quality or the real needs of schools, the party insists on turning language into a political battleground, as if the mere fact that Catalan is present in classrooms were a problem to be eradicated," they stated. SIAU points out that the system already provides for flexibility when there are urgent needs: "The possibility of temporarily teaching without the language requirement exists to cover urgent needs, but the general criterion is that priority is given to teachers who do speak Catalan, because they are the ones who can guarantee an education fully adapted to the linguistic context of the territory. This distorts the debate and fuels an artificial controversy on an issue that, in practice, already has mechanisms for flexibility."