Start of the school year, in public schools and in Catalan
The most important news of every year has come out, and that is that the children have returned to school. The homeland, the country, hope, whatever you want, is this: that every September the children return to school. When this stops happening, that's when things have gone seriously wrong. There are no schools in Palestine, just as there are none in Sudan, or in Yemen, or in Congo, or in many places in Syria. There are no schools in places where there is violence and civil war. Eighty-nine years ago, after the summer of the Franco uprising, there were no schools here either. Let's be clear: there were no public schools, which had only recently begun to exist. Private schools, those for those who can afford them regardless of what happens or doesn't happen to the rest of society, are always open, of course.
Schools must return every September; they must be public, and in the Balearic Islands, they must be in the country's native language, which is Catalan. This is what allows, despite everything, this country, these islands, to have a chance to advance, improve, coexist, and maintain a minimum of social cohesion. Without a quality public school in Catalan, this possibility ceases to exist, and what takes its place is deterioration, the impoverishment of people, tension, lack of coexistence, and, ultimately, the collapse of society. A collapse that is a temptation that is always lurking, and to which we seem about to give in. If we don't do it, if we haven't given in yet, let us rest assured, it is because a quality public school in Catalan exists.
Precisely for this reason, some people are doing everything they can to erode public education, and naturally, to attack Catalan, two true ideological obsessions of the nationalist right. This is also why it is so important that the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands has ruled against the proposal to impose 25% Spanish in primary school classrooms, a pedagogically absurd claim that only serves the fulfillment of these obsessions (the court has ordered the legal entity that filed the lawsuit to pay the costs).
Equally relevant were the results of the language survey promoted by the PP and Vox, with 80% of families choosing for their children to receive primary education in Catalan (82% in Mallorca, 91% in Menorca, 60% in Ibiza). And even earlier, the educational community's rejection of the Language Segregation Plan that the PP agreed to implement at Vox's request. All these realities make one thing clear: wanting to govern against Catalan-language schools is wanting to act against the will of the citizens of the Balearic Islands. It is also an attack on the linguistic rights of these same citizens, and linguistic rights are fundamental rights: therefore, acting against them is tantamount to backwardness and a democratic regression. We will tell them this, in writing, verbally, and through citizen protests, as many times as necessary. There is nothing negotiable regarding public schools and the Balearic Islands' own language. It is right, yes, that public resources be dedicated to the construction of new educational centers. However, much more resources still need to be dedicated to properly equipping schools (both new and existing) with the teachers and materials they need to operate optimally. And more time and energy should not be wasted singling out teachers, scrutinizing their work, or attempting to turn public schools into arenas of confrontation.
