80% of families opt for Catalan language schooling in the 4th grade of preschool.

80.52% of families—three percentage points less than last year—with children starting their fourth year of preschool in publicly funded schools have chosen Catalan as their primary language of instruction, while 19.48% have opted for Spanish. In absolute figures, this represents 6,458 registrations in Catalan and 1,563 in Spanish. This year was the first time that registration could be done online. The breakdown by island is as follows, with significant differences:

• Majorca:82.78% of families (5,268) chose Catalan, while 17.26% (1,098) chose Spanish.
• Ibiza and Formentera:60.34% of the registrations (630) correspond to Catalan and 39.66% (414) to Spanish.
• Minorca:91.6% of families (560) have opted for Catalan and 8.35% (51) for Spanish.

The poor figures for Catalan in schools in Ibiza and Formentera are not surprising. The results of the 2023 Institute for the Evaluation and Quality of the Educational System (IAQSE) tests—the latest available—were poor on all the islands. But in Ibiza and Formentera, they obtained a substantially worse score than in the rest. Only the38% of 4th grade students achieved linguistic competence in Catalan, compared to 51% in Mallorca and 55% in Menorca. Ibiza's poor results brought the average down to 49%.

Regarding the Linguistic Segregation Plan, only 19 schools have joined in two years, all of them state-funded. This represents 4.3% of the 435 schools that provide primary or secondary education in the Balearic Islands, according to the 2024 Education Yearbook. Paradoxically, four of the five state-funded Catalan schools are worse off according to the 2023 IAQSE test results. The schools that have decided to participate are four of the five (80%): Nuestra Señora de la Consolación, Sa Real, Can Bonet, and Virgen de las Nieves. It is the language that should be reinforced so that all students complete compulsory schooling mastering both official languages. Currently, many students finish school with a poor level of Catalan, according to the teachers surveyed, also from Ibiza. The schools neglect their own language. "It happens in every school. There's a certain type of teacher who doesn't use Catalan with their students," says one teacher, who has been a school principal for many years. Teachers with little awareness

Another problem is that "the new generations of teachers coming out of the university campus in Ibiza have Spanish as their native language, and when it comes to teaching and addressing students, they struggle to do so in Catalan," explains the professor himself. A teacher who was at the Quartó de Portmany Secondary School criticizes the "lack of involvement" on the part of teachers regarding the use of Catalan. "In the Catalan Language Department, we complained about this, that if we teachers ourselves didn't demonstrate the usefulness of the language, the students would reject it," she points out.

In Ibiza, the same professional continues, "there is a lot of Catalanophobia, as well as the perception that Catalan is a peasant and useless language." Another problem detected is with adult students. "In some cases, they are not receptive to Catalan," she says. Another teacher expresses a worrying perception. "There are a lot of newcomers, but there is an added problem: there are many Ibizan students who hate their own language," she laments.