The Diplomat
The Estonian MEP and president of the delegation of MEPs that has visited Catalonia to analyze linguistic immersion, Yana Toom (Renew Europe), yesterday questioned the effectiveness of the model, giving as an example the poor results of Catalonia in the PISA 2022 report, while she rejected being called “racists and fascists.”
In a press conference at the European Parliament Office in Barcelona, after the three-day visit that the delegation has made to different Catalan schools to check how linguistic immersion works, the MEP wondered why no one is looking for a model to Catalonia that does work, Europa Press reports.
After stating that “Catalan is not in danger”, the MEP expressed her doubts about the effectiveness of the linguistic immersion model, citing the poor results of Catalonia in the PISA 2022 report: “It does not work very well, but the curious thing is that Nobody is looking for another model in Catalonia,” she said.
Toom recalled that Catalonia is not the only territory “in which this problem exists on the planet” and gave as an example her native country, Estonia, where she affirms that there is a fairly large Russian-speaking community and that the parents of these children can ask them to do a bit of Russian classes aside.
Likewise, she pointed out that during her visit to Catalonia these days she went to the Sagrada Familia, where there was information “everything in Japanese, Chinese and English”, but “nothing in Spanish.” However, she acknowledged that she does not have day-to-day experience and that this fact “has nothing to do with the report’s conclusions.”
After regretting that the delegation has been accused of coming with a predetermined idea, the MEP said that this is not true and rejected that they have been called “racist and fascist.”
On the other hand, she criticized that, during the visits to the educational centers, an inspector from the Department of Education was present, of whom they had no knowledge that he was going to come, and maintained that, for her, this “is not a free exchange of opinions between schools and it doesn’t help at all.
She also reported that, for the conclusions, the delegation will also request data on how many families have gone to court to request teaching in Spanish, and assured that they will “make the effort to have a very complete report.”
Toom considered it “very strange” that the Generalitat does not give figures of how many students receive 25% of their education in Spanish, even more so, knowing that a delegation from the European Parliament was going to arrive.
“We have asked how many students in general in Catalonia receive 25% of their education in Spanish, and without an answer, which is very strange if they know that a delegation from the European Parliament is coming,” she said, indicating that they end the meeting with “some questions without answers “.
However, she pointed out that “it is too early” for the group of MEPs that has been in Catalonia since Monday to draw conclusions, since she believes that they lack data, and announced that they will prepare a report that will be presented and voted on in the Committee on Requests from the European Parliament in about 3 months.
During the three-day visit, they went to two educational centers in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) -an institute and a special education center- and when asked why they had chosen these two centers, she answered that they are “decisions of the Secretariat of the European Parliament, in agreement with the local authorities” and highlighted that there were representatives of the Generalitat in those meetings.
Regarding the special education center, she said that it has a model based on total linguistic immersion, and of the institute, which applies 25% of Spanish, Toom assured that it is an example of “successful bilingualism.
