When the pisa worldwide educational comparisons came out late in 2023, most countries fell to wondering how to do better. In Catalonia the results were seen through the lenses of nationalism and language—as everything is. Spain had lost ground since the last time the tests were done, in 2018. But students in Catalonia lost even more, and native Spanish-speakers did worse than Catalan-speakers to boot—a failing critics were quick to pin on language policy.
In the 1980s Catalonia began a transition to teaching all subjects in Catalan, except Spanish. Several years ago the region’s top court ruled that at least 25% of classes must be given in Spanish. The regional government, led by separatists, then passed a law allowing individual school heads to raise or lower the level of teaching in Spanish, according to need.