‘Hands off Catalan schools’
Thousands take to the streets in Barcelona to defend Catalonia’s educational system with a focus on linguistic immersion as a guarantee of social harmony
Following the demonstration by pensioners in the morning, there was another protest in the centre of Barcelona in the afternoon in defence of Catalan schools. Called by a number of organisations in the education sector as well as others promoting Catalan language and culture, the rally focused on a number of issues. The main one was defending Catalan as the working language in schools, although another was the right of teachers to talk about anything in class, including the October 1 referendum. There were also calls for more resources for schools.
“Catalan schools have no fear” was the most-heard slogan during the march, along with “We have no fear” or “Schools will always be ours”.
As is usual, there were no incidents during the protest, although the atmosphere began to heat up towards the end, when the march arrived at the Estació Nord, where the speeches took place. There was a thread through the speeches by representatives of the organisations involved: the Catalan school system as a guarantee of social harmony.
The spokesman of the Ustec-STEs union, Ramon Font, said that the Catalan school system “allows everyone to freely speak what they like.” Without linguistic immersion, he said, children in some neighbourhoods would never have learnt Catalan, and would be at a disadvantage compared to others.
Similarly, the spokeswoman for the Sindicat d’Estudiants dels Països Catalans (SEPC), Mercè Terès, praised the role of students in defending the Catalan school system and made reference to the recent plans by the Spanish government to reduce the presence of Catalan in classrooms. “Every day they are attacking the Catalan countries,” she said to an ovation.