Because, while the level of competence in Catalan has reached very high values, our
concern today is about the divergence between the value of competence and the social
use of the language.
From our point of view, even having enough funds and implementing excellent
educational programs in minority language education, the main point should be to
respect human rights regarding the use of minority languages, including in life outside
school.
We would like to mention two aspects which are now central to the health of Catalan
and which, in our opinion, have influence on the prospects for increasing social use.
Both aspects pose problems to the extent that they come into conflict with the dominant
state.
The first concerns the fact that there is no pact of non-aggression by the dominant
state against the minority in terms of education. This leads to very unstable school
constructs, in which the efforts of the agents are exposed to constant attacks and the
system is often facing court disputes and wasting resources.
There is no stable working framework, because the legislation is constantly being
questioned and changed. The educational model is often a topic in election campaigns
- but not in a constructive way, and fake news are spread. This prevents somewhat
hesitant non-Catalan-speaking families from developing confidence in the school
system and doesn’t contribute to expand the social use of Catalan in normal life outside
the educational context.
The second aspect concerns the fact that the best education in the minority language is
useless if the language cannot be used in every area of life. As a rule, there are
asymmetric power relationships between the speakers and in which the dominant state
is also involved as one of the agents. An important example of this is the judiciary. It
constitutes a clear violation of human rights if the defendant is denied the use of their
own language, as it was the case in the trial against the 9 Catalan social and political
leaders this year.
And now I come to the end and want to ask: How can the Catalan educational system
seriously ensure that Catalan speakers are not only able to speak Catalan but that they