Education to give equal priority to Basque and Spanish

On Monday, Basque Education councillor Isabel Celaá presented the amendments which will be introduced into the Basque education curriculum.

In order to avoid the "nationalistic indoctrination" and establish "normative equality" between Basque and Spanish, the term Euskal Herria will be removed from the textbooks in its political sense. Furthermore, the changes clearly specify the rejection of all forms of violence.

Euskera will no longer be the lingua franca at schools, as it was previously following a decision of the previous Basque government.

Celaá considered that the fact that the Basque language was the common tongue at schools discriminated against the 80% of the population whose basic language is Spanish. That situation "took away rather that added to (education) given that the system ignored the linguistic reality."

Celeá went on to describe this as "an unnecessary offense".

The new curricular project "does not establish any priority" of one language over another, but instead looks for "balanced bilingualism" without ranks. As the councillor explained, the different education centres will choose in the end, according to their sociolinguistic communities.

'Euskal Herria'

From now on, the term Euskal Herria will only be used in a cultural or linguistic context. It will be replaced by the forms 'Euskadi' or 'Basque Autonomous Community' when referring to the political and administrative area of the Basque Country.

The documents presented by Celaá will be discussed by the Basque School Board and other entities such as the Basque Institute for Women (Emakunde), within approximately two months, informed the Education councillor. Later on, the documents will be sent back to the Executive in order to be approved by the Government Council.