- In Catalan institutes, the use of Catalan in student interactions stands at 21.4% and 46.8% of the teaching staff is allocated to students in Catalan. The survey, conducted by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat, shows a significant decrease compared to 2006. The Basque Government has presented a plan to promote the use of Catalan in schools to deal with this problem.
The Department of Culture of the Generalitat has presented the results of the survey carried out in 2021 among 4th grade students, approximately 50 students. This survey measures the use of students' language and compares the data with the surveys conducted in 2006 and 2013.
In 2006, 56% of students were always or almost always in Catalan, compared to 39.4% of students in 2021. In the collective works carried out among the students, in 2006, 67.8% of the students were directed to the rest of the students always or almost always in Catalan, but in 2021 only 21.4%. The report has also revealed another worrying fact: In 2006, 63.7% of the teaching staff were in Catalan (being the model of immersion, except in the subjects of other languages, all of them should be corrected in Catalan), while in 2021 46.8% of the teaching staff were directed to the students in their own language.
To explain this downward trend, the Secretary of Linguistic Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila, has highlighted two reasons: the change in the forms of teaching, in which the interaction between students is higher and the direct intervention of teachers is lower. On the other hand, it has changed attitudes towards new students from countries where Catalan is not spoken: "In the early 2000s, there was a great consensus that the new Catalans should be incorporated into the use of language. In recent years, the same dynamic has not been taken, quite the opposite, and it has been addressed to them in Spanish".
Catalan Promotion Plan in Schools
In response to this situation, the Minister for Culture, Natàlia Garriga, and the Minister for Education, Josep González-Cambray, have presented a plan to promote the use of Catalan. Each centre shall conduct a language test and specific training sessions shall be held to make the educational community aware of the weight it has on the health of the language. In each centre, Catalan promotional teams will be set up, composed of teachers, management and a language professional, who will have to define and carry out improvements and objectives.
Vilaweb highlights in the headline the low level of use of the professors taught in the program.
The Journal, for its part, has emphasized the decrease in the use of students.