The plenary session of the Benitatxell Town Council has approved by majority (with 7 votes in favour from the Més Benitatxell government team; one vote in favour, one abstention and one against from REDcv Benitatxell, and the vote against from the Popular Party) a motion proposed by the Education Department in defence of the Valencian language and against the consultation promoted by the Education Department of the Generalitat Valenciana on the vehicular language in public educational centres.
The motion claims that this measure promotes linguistic conflict, since it places the debate on the choice between Valencian or Castilian instead of promoting programs that allow for balanced competition between the official languages, and represents a threat to the survival of Valencian, as well as a violation of linguistic and educational rights.
On June 27, 2024, Law 1/2024 of the Generalitat was approved, which regulates educational freedom and aims to give families the possibility of choosing between Valencian and Castilian as the vehicular language of their sons and daughters.
As reflected in the motion, El Poble Nou de Benitatxell, a historically Valencian-speaking municipality, is now facing an unfavourable situation for Valencian given its idiosyncrasy. The municipality has a growing population, where more than 50% of its inhabitants are of foreign origin. This diversity is an asset, but it also represents a challenge for the preservation of the language and culture.
Thus, as the Councillor for Education, Jorge Pascual, has argued, "in view of the imminent vote on the language of instruction in schools, it is essential that the City Council take measures to promote teaching in Valencian, thus guaranteeing comprehensive and competitive training for the new generations." Pascual has outlined in several points the benefits of studying in Valencian, which "go beyond the simple acquisition of a language":
- Valencian is key to accessing many jobs within the Valencian Community, especially in areas such as education, public administration and other sectors.
- Studying in Valencian not only ensures mastery of this language, but also facilitates learning other languages.
- Learning Valencia allows you to access a rich cultural heritage.
- Studying in Valencian does not harm the learning of Spanish, but quite the opposite. Students who study in Valencian usually obtain very good results in Spanish as well.
- Valencian is part of our identity as a people and is a key element of integration for families from other countries.
- The children of Benitatxell have the right to learn the language of the area where they live, and the City Council as an Administration has the duty to guarantee this right.
- If the language of instruction changes in the middle of the school year, it will have serious consequences for the families of the town. Students who have been studying in one language all their lives will be forced to change to another as their base language. In addition, this change will directly affect the Red Libros program, importing economic resources from the reuse of textbooks that are doomed to disappear, with the consequent economic damage that this will mean for families.
The motion concludes, among other things, by urging the Department of Education, Culture, Universities and Employment to suspend the consultation and to open a process of dialogue with the educational community and to consider the contributions of the scientific community.
Mayor, Miguel Ángel García, for his part, has described the slogan of "freedom of choice" coined by the Valencian PP government as a "fallacy", since, he argued, "the mere fact that in a course where there is only one class, one language or another is chosen by simple majority, is already depriving those families who have not chosen the predominant language of that freedom of choice."
He also defended the current trilingual system, which teaches subjects in Valencian, Spanish and English in equal proportions. “Boys and girls are sponges, and the current law allows them not only to learn three languages, but to open new neural and learning paths.” He warned that “this strategy tries to divert the debate and divide people. That at this point a political war is reopened over language, when the current system had a majority consensus of the entire educational community, makes no sense. Peace had been created, the thirds had been respected, segregation had been avoided and Valencian had not been imposed over Spanish in an openly Valencianist regional government. What was wrong with this system with the same percentage of teaching hours per language?”
As spokesperson for the Més Benitatxell Municipal Group and a teacher by profession, the councilor Víctor Bisquert He explained the "organisational chaos" that is being suffered in these days in the teaching centres with this new measure, for which, he assures, "the criteria of the educational community have not been taken into account at all." In addition, he pointed out that "a division has been created to cover up aspects such as the fact that the teaching staff has been cut by almost 4.000 people or that absences of less than 15 days are not being covered." Therefore, he concluded that "the obligation of the public administration is to guarantee that all languages are known, especially minority languages such as Valencian."
Talks on the law on educational freedom
On Tuesday afternoon, the Social Centre of El Poble Nou de Benitatxell hosted a talk organised by the AMPA of the CEIP Santa María Magdalena and the Town Hall on the law of educational freedom given by Jaume Fullana, former Director General of Educational Policy. In addition, next Tuesday 25 February, also at 19:00 pm at the Social Centre, another meeting will be held in Spanish on the consultation of the base language, which will be given by the former teacher of the village school and former coordinator of the General Directorate of Educational Policy Voro Gómez.
