The nearly 40,000 Catalan students who this morning have faced the first day of Selectivity tests in Catalonia have found an anonymous form in which they had to detail in which language they want to answer the exams of the different days of tests. With this sheet, which students must fill out without their identity being known, the Generalitat intends to comply with the order of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) which dictates that it guarantee all students their right to answer the forms in any of the three official languages (Catalan, Spanish and Aranese). And it complies, in part, because students can freely choose the language without being singled out.
However, before the student can indicate in a box -located to the right of each subject- their linguistic option for each subject, the Generalitat has introduced a previous option in which it “induces” them to answer in the regional language all the exams.
“If you want to receive all the statements in Catalan, check this box,” he suggests.
The Assembly for a Bilingual School (AEB) considers that the Generalitat “ridiculously induces students to take exams in Catalan” and “once again tries to prioritize the use of the regional language among students in these tests.”
The entity has announced that it will present an appeal to the Interuniversity Council of Catalonia (CIC) to correct this error in the September tests. “For something like this to happen is inappropriate for an administration,” Ana Losada, president of the AEB, told ABC. “We will file with the CIC an appeal for reconsideration for the wording of the election sheet,” says Losada.
The change by the Generalitat in the use of languages in the University Access Tests (PAU) is due to the fact that last year, for the 2021 tests, the AEB won the regional administration in court, the that the entity accused of violating the fundamental rights of students by not distributing the selectivity tests in all the official languages and prioritizing Catalan, which meant a loss for students who wanted to take the test in Spanish or Aranese.
The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia agreed with the AEB, which even determined its legitimacy to challenge linguistic matters, and ordered the Generalitat not to determine the language of the students. “The choice of the language of the exam statements cannot be determined by the administration and, instead, the exams must be available in the three co-official languages,” the judges pointed out.
The Selectivity exams in Catalonia have started this morning with the exams of Spanish Language and Literature and Foreign Language and will continue in the afternoon with the tests of Musical Analysis, Audiovisual Culture, Electrotechnics, Physics and Geography.
