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"Catalanophobia exists" and "Catalonia has to communicate its ideals if it is to be understood by the rest of Spain" says the socialist candidate to the next Spanish general elections
There has been a 400% increase in attendance of official Barça summer schools (FCB Camp) with respect to last year. More than 18,000 children are enjoying the summer camps organised by FC Barcelona.
The private school will follow the British curriculum so, that when the students finish high school, they will be able to attend any public or private university either in Spain or in the United Kingdom. It is the latest addition to a series of international schools in Catalonia, which infuse an international and intercultural perspective into their teaching programmes, or they directly follow a curriculum from another country.
The first creation factory, called ‘La central del circ’ (Circus HQ), is now open to the public in the city’s Parc del Fòrum, next to the Sant Adrià sports port.
The Catalan Minister for Education said that not all the 40,000 students that were meant to start the laptop programme at the next academic course will be able to do so. Although the main reason is due to the economic cutbacks, the Minister said that the are also pending teaching evaluations regarding the use of laptops.
The new initiative is based on sports like Pilates. The pilot school is located in Montellà, in the Catalan Pyrenees. The measure was an initiative from the school zone director, who was concerned about future back problems. It was agreed on with the parents, the school and the Catalan Ministry of Education.
Spain’s Highest Court sentences on a case about 3 parents who wanted their children to be taught in Spanish at Catalan public schools. The decision breaks the principle of using Catalan as the language of instruction in Catalan schools. This model has been in place for the last 30 years and guarantees knowledge of both the Catalan and Spanish languages by all pupils, as exam records have been proving. Now, Spain’s Supreme Court is interpreting the Spanish Constitutional Court’s sentence from last June, which stated that Catalan was a teaching language but that Spanish should also be. The fear in Catalonia is that the country will split into 2 separated language communities and social groups will not understand Catalan.
Catalan students are back to the books, or in some cases, laptops. The 2010-2011 school year began this morning with over 1,200,000 students and 88,467 teachers back in the classroom.
The future is here. Digitalisation in school classrooms is now a reality. This summer, a large step has been taken in order to provide Catalan high-school students with laptops and digital books. Catalan Minister for Education Ernest Maragall says it is “an extraordinary step in changing our educational system”.