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In 2012, 26.5% of the Catalans could have a conversation with someone in English, according to the latest survey on foreign languages issued by the Catalan Institute of Statistics (IDESCAT). The youngest population was also the most skilled, with 50.8% of teenagers aged 15-19 knowing the language. According to EU studies on bilingualism, Catalonia should offer a more positive context for English learning, due to having two main official languages, Catalan and Castilian (referred to as Spanish abroad). But, despite improving figures, the Catalans remain slightly behind the Spaniards and are still outdistanced by the Scandinavian leaders. Nevertheless, recent figures point towards a positive change in trend, sparked by a school system that fosters true bilingualism. Interestingly, Catalan currently is the minority language in Catalonia, following successive waves of immigration from other regions in Spain and Franco’s repression.

Irene Rigau, the Catalan Minister for Education, announced that Catalonia will participate in the working group created to analyse how to better implement the Spanish Government's Education Reform. Such a group was announced by the Spanish Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert, to make "Catalonia feel comfortable" with a Reform that totally changes the current school model. However, Rigau stated that the results of the working group will have to be assessed before implementing the Reform. On Wednesday, she refused to attend a meeting in Madrid to discuss how Spanish will be made an instruction language in Catalan schools. After the meeting, the Spanish Government stated that this will done "one way or the other" in September 2014. Meanwhile, the judicial battle goes on and the five schools forced to teach 25% of the subjects in Spanish will be allowed to appeal.

The Catalan Government announced it will take to the Constitutional Court four bills drafted by the Spanish Executive because they neglect Catalonia’s self-government capacities and exclusive powers. The 4 affected bills are the Education Reform, the Market Unity Law, the Local Governments Law and the Environment Evaluation Law. The Spokesperson for the Catalan Government and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, said that those reforms go against the Constitution and aim to reform it “through the back door”. “It is a reform without the needed transparency, without holding an open debate”, he said. “They are stripping away our political capacity to decide”, Homs emphasised. The Spanish Government justified the recentralisation of powers as a way to improve efficiency in times of economic crisis and austerity. However, several experts have already warned that it is not proven that efficiency will improve if powers are centralised.

The Spanish Ministry of Education has released the decree proposal stating that the Catalan Government has the obligation to provide alternatives to families who request their children to be taught in Spanish in public schools, where Catalan is the first language of instruction and Spanish is mostly taught as a subject. Furthermore, Catalonia and all other Autonomous Communities with two official languages will have “to fully assume” the costs of these children’s education in privately-owned schools using Spanish as the language of instruction if the families do not find the appropriate public alternative. The money will be deducted from the Autonomous Communities’ funding scheme if they do not cooperate. However, the decree does not work the other way round in regions such as Valencia, where families are having problems to school their children in Catalan (co-official there).

The winners of the 19^th Global Mobile Awards were announced on Tuesday afternoon, in a ceremony held at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The prizes recognize the most innovative mobile products, apps, services and initiatives from all over the world. More than 175 international industry experts, analysts, journalists and academics were involved in the judging process.In the category of the Best Mobile Handsets and Devices, the HTC One scooped top award of the Best Smartphone, defeating other nominees such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Apple iPhone 5S.The Apple iPad Air was announced as Best Mobile Tablet. Nokia was a runaway winner having received awards in two different categories. The Catalan Government was also honoured for the educational mSchools project. The award ceremony was hosted by British comedian James Corden.

The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled against the Catalan school model again. The model, which is based on the linguistic immersion principle, has been in place since the mid-1980s and totally guarantees the pupils’ knowledge of both Spanish and Catalan at the end of their schooling period. On Monday the Court rejected an appeal lodged last year by the Catalan Government against a previous judgement that obliged a school to go against Catalonia’s Education Law and teach the entire class in Spanish following a single request from a little girl’s family, irrespective of the opinion of the other pupils’ families. This is another episode in a long series of judicial rulings, appeals and judgements against Catalonia’s school model and the Catalan language since 2010. Spanish nationalists, particularly Madrid-based media and the People’s Party (PP), have been attacking this model and the Catalan language for the last decade and a half, but recently they have managed to get the centralist judicial authorities to back them.

One of Barcelona’s main cultural institutions celebrated its 35^th anniversary last weekend. Barcelona’s contemporary music scene of the last 3 decades cannot be understood without El Taller de Músics school. For this reason, Santiago Auserón, la Mala Rodríguez & Refree, Cris Juanico, Miqui Puig, Andrea Motis & Joan Chamorro or the guitarist Biel Ballester are some the most prestigious artists who participated  in a tribute concert at the ‘Palau de la Música’ on Sunday. The famous Original Jazz Orquestra played throughout the evening, in an event that was also a vindication of a cultural project in times of economic crisis. Founded in 1979, El Taller de Músics is Barcelona’s most prestigious school for jazz, flamenco and fusion music. The school gives significant style freedom to its students and also organises numerous concerts.

On Tuesday Catalonia’s education stakeholders – including unions, pedagogic organisations and parent associations – asked the Catalan Executive and Parliament to lead “the boycott” of the Spanish Government’s Education Reform, known as LOMQE. This reform aims to recentralise education powers, foster religion and impose Spanish as a language of instruction in Catalonia. Furthermore, on Monday evening thousands of people demonstrated in front of Catalonia’s High Court (TSJC) in support of the current school model in Catalonia, which is based on the linguistic immersion principle that guarantees the knowledge of both Spanish and Catalan. Political parties, trade unions, cultural associations and teaching organisations were protesting against the TSJC’s recent ruling that imposed a requirement that 25% of a school’s curriculum be taught in Spanish if a single pupil asks for it. The TSJC was interpreting a judgement by the Spanish Supreme Court, framed in a broader offensive against Catalan language.

‘Escola Pia’, one of the largest Catalan networks of privately-owned schools, believes that the Catalan High Court (TSJC) ruling forcing one of its school in Barcelona to teach 25% of classes in Spanish, “goes against” its educational project. The school network highlights that this project was “formally accepted by the families who have enrolled their children here”. ‘Escola Pia’ have issued a manifesto rejecting the TSJC sentence which states that if the family of a single pupil asks for classes to be taught in Spanish, “at least” 25% of the mandatory school subjects will have to be taught in Spanish in the entire classroom, regardless of the opinion of the other pupils’ families. After having received such a demand from one family, ‘Escola Pia’ explained: “We choose to teach in the Catalan language because we are deeply rooted to this country and we are at its service”.

In order “to guarantee the general interest”, the Catalan Executive rejects changing “a single comma” of the linguistic immersion model in place in Catalonia’s school system despite the latest judicial sentences forcing to introduce Spanish as a language of instruction, as confirmed by the Government’s Spokesperson Francesc Homs. The Catalan Executive “will continue to implement Catalonia’s Education Law (LEC)” and will file an appeal against last week’s sentence issued by the Catalan High Court (TSJC), interpreting a previous decision from the Spanish Supreme Court. Furthermore, the Catalan Council for Constitutional Guarantees – an independent advisory body on jurisdiction matters – stated that the Spanish Government’s Education Reform is “unconstitutional” and goes against Catalonia’s self-government and its own laws such as the LEC.

Catalonia’s High Court has interpreted the last sentence of the Spanish Supreme Court and forces the Catalan Government to offer “at least” 25% of the mandatory school curricula in Spanish in the schools where pupils ask for it. A dozen of parents had complained in the last few years, filing several appeals and stating they wanted their children to be taught in Spanish in Catalonia’s public schools. The Catalan school model is based on the linguistic immersion principle and almost all the subjects are taught in Catalan except Spanish which is taught as a language. However, the system includes many flexibility measures for new-comers and individualised attention in Spanish. The Spanish Supreme Court considered this was insufficient and sentenced that a class had to be taught in Spanish if the family of a single pupil asked for it and even if the other children’s families had not requested it.

The Catalan Government and the other four Autonomous Community executives that are not run by the People’s Party (PP) are totally opposed to the Spanish Executive’s Education Reform, which recentralises powers, homogenises curricula, fosters the presence of religion and sidelines Catalan language and history. The Reform has raised a huge controversy in Catalonia, since it ends the Catalan school model that has been in place for the last 35 years and is backed by a large consensus. On Wednesday the Education Ministers of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Andalusia, Asturias and the Canaries criticised the Spanish Government’s “lack of dialogue”. They pointed out “the improvisation, precipitation and imposition” of the Spanish Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert. They also argued that it is “impossible” to “implement” the Reform in the next school-year.

In appeal, the Spanish Supreme Court has sided with the family who requested their son to be taught in Spanish in school, alongside Catalan. Despite the Constitution not advocating pupils had “the right to be taught in Spanish”, but only stating they had “the right and duty to know Spanish”, a dozen families have requested their children to be taught in this language, turning to the judicial system. Whilst the Constitutional Court has validated on two occasions the Catalan schooling system, based on Catalan as first language of instruction, the Supreme Court ruled against it. The Catalan Government was offering individualised attention to these children, but the judicial decision states that Spanish has to be used for “the entire class of the pupil”, even though the rest of the pupils have not requested to be taught in this language.

Since it was named Mobile World Capital for a 7-year period in 2011, Barcelona has worked on becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry. Since 2006, it is hosting the world’s main event of the sector, the Mobile World Congress, but on top of this it is also developing manifold parallel initiatives. Some of them focus on Education and the younger generation. Among such measures there is a new secondary school course, ‘Mobilitzem la informàtica’ (Mobilising IT), dedicated to creating and designing applications for mobile phones. During the first stage of the course, 5,965 pupils from 196 high-schools have studied the subject in a theoretical way. Now they are about to start the practical stage, devoted to designing and developing mobile applications to be released on the market. Pupils will be mentored by trained teachers as well as leading professionals in the sector.

The Spanish Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert, emphasised the need to have a common and single history of Spain taught in all the Autonomous Communities. With the Education Reform he is currently proposing, the history curriculum will be imposed by Madrid and the Autonomous Communities will only be able to add a small portion referring to their own history. However, such additional contentswill be excluded from the final exams and therefore pupils will tend to ignorethem. With this initiative, Wert aims to impose a single interpretation of the historic facts affecting Spain’s history and nation-building. Lately, the Spanish Government, run by the People’s Party (PP), has repeatedly stated that Spain is “the oldest nation in Europe” and is now focusing on the education system to spread this idea.