Schools with the D-PAI education model implemented in the next academic year will have to provide an extra hour of English, deducted from the hours of study in Basque. The decision has been made by the Department of Education to match the models of the MYP program. Interestingly, while Spanish models are deprived of hours of English, they are added to Basque models.

The STEILAS union denounces this decision and lodges an appeal against it, because it contradicts the Provincial Decree of 1988, which establishes the language models of Navarre. “Only Basque and Spanish were considered to define these models, English was not even mentioned. On model D it says the following: In the ´D model the teaching is entirely in Basque, with the exception of the Spanish area, at all levels and cycles´.

STEILAS has also focused on schools with an established D-PAI model. “In the vast majority of schools with D-PAI, the presence of Basque outside of school is relatively weak, so learning Basque well is even more difficult if the number of hours of English increases. Immersion is a serious problem, as not enough Basque language skills are available to transfer to other languages. As if that were not enough, the academic level in the areas taught in English decreases significantly.”

STEILAS wanted to highlight the failure of models such as PAI. “It is harmful for most students and that is why they will reduce the hours of English in the Spanish models, without taking into account that the immersion model in Basque is carried out, at the same time as those hours of foreign language classes increase.”

STEILAS explains the report of the University of Madrid on the negative impact of the MYP model on the students’ level, “That’s next to a language like Spanish, so think about the consequences that it can have on an immersion model like Basque.” The education union recalls that Chibit himself signed against the PAI model during his time as senator, “Unless and in the Balearic Islands, why not in Navarre with the Basque language, because it was to the detriment of Catalana?”