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Returning teachers vow trilingual war 'not over'

George Mills
George Mills - [email protected]
Returning teachers vow trilingual war 'not over'
Teachers in Majorca have vowed to keep fighting trilingual education reforms. Screen grab: YouTube

Schools in Spain's Balearic Islands opened for business again on Monday after a three-week strike against against a new trilingual education law which many argue undermine the role of Catalan in the classroom.

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Primary and secondary school teachers in the archipelago, which includes the islands of Majorca Ibiza, Menorca and Formentera, had been on strike since September 16th in protest against a proposed new trilingual education model (TIL).

The model — proposed by the region's ruling conservative Popular Party — will see a third of all classes held in English, Castellano and Catalan respectively.   

But many educators believe this is aimed at undermining the role of Catalan in the region's classrooms.

Both Castellano and Catalan are widely spoken in the Balearic Islands.

And while teachers have now gone into the classroom, they vow to keep fighting the changes.

"Our return to the school means doing all we can to make sure the TIL is not introduced," a strike committee member told Spain's El País newspaper on Saturday.

"What it definitely doesn't mean is that this is the end of the fight. Instead it's the beginning of another battle on another plain, with another strategy."

On Sunday 29th, a tenth of the islands' population (110,000 people) took part in street demos to voice their discontent about the TIL.

On Sunday October 6th, meanwhile, some 30 people gathered in the city of Palma de Mallorca to support the reforms.

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