On March 6, the Plenary of the City of Pamplona rejected Fernando Sesma, Councilor for Education, Culture and Citizen Participation, with the votes of EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and PSN. The three groups were outraged at Sesma, as it did not shed light on the results of the survey on language models in children's schools. Navarra Suma has decided to release this data in the midst of the state of alarm and as soon as the mayor, Enrique Maia, began to work after suffering the coronavirus.
According to various media outlets, 22% of the families surveyed claim to be interested in the Basque model. However, this is not the whole truth. If the surveyed families had to choose among the three current models, 66% would do so in favor of Spanish and English, 22% in favor of Euskera and 7% in favor of Spanish. However, in these elections there is a significant distortion, as in the current models there is the possibility of combining English with Spanish, but not English with Euskera.
If the model option is extended, the answers are different: 55% of the families want Spanish and English, 13% only Basque, 10% Basque and English, 8% Spanish and Basque, 5% English, Basque and Spanish, 6% Spanish, 2% other options and 1% do not indicate the desired linguistic model. Thus, according to the survey, 36% of the families that choose to have a model in Euskera do so in 36%. A significant nuance: those who most bet on the Spanish model without Euskera and the English model in the survey are the families that already have children in a private children's school: 77%.
Currently, 36% of the families of children's schools bring the child to the Basque model; 36% to those who combine Spanish and English; and 28% to those who do it exclusively in Spanish. Currently, 10 municipal children's schools in Pamplona have 941 children. There are 301 on the waiting list. 28% for the Basque model and 72% for the rest.
However, if the changes announced by Navarre Suma were carried out in children's schools, the offer of models in Basque would fall to 14%. In 2016-2017, the previous municipal government team implemented the Basque model in Donibane and Printzearen Harresi children's schools. And so children's schools in Euskera went from two to four in ten. The judges have ruled against this decision on the grounds that it did not have the approval of the Government of Navarra. In this sense, Maia has announced that it returns these modifications so that within two courses the children's schools in Euskera will be one and a half of every ten. The plenary is opposed to it.
The survey was carried out by the company Mercatec between 29 January and 12 February. It conducted 1,000 questionnaires among families with children between 0 and 3 years of age. According to the census, in Pamplona/Iruña there are 6,464 children of this age, between 0 and 3 years old, in 5,531 families.