Legislation

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE

Decree 125/2000, September 8, which establishes the general arrangements of schooling in children's education, primary education and compulsory secondary education in the Balearic Islands.

By means of the Royal Decree 1876/1997, of December 12, on the transfer of functions and services from the State's administration to the Balearic Islands in the matter of non-University education, and also in accordance with the first final dispositions of the abovementioned decrees 1330/1991, 1006/1991, 1007/1991 and 894/1995, it is a duty of the Government of the Balearic Islands to dictate, within the field of its competences, the dispositions necessary for the execution and development of such decrees.

The government of the Balearic Islands sets forth a quality education with the purpose to put into effect the ambition to attain an educational system for all citizens, to be integrating, rooted in the environment, of prevention and compensatory of inequalities, coherent with our cultural and linguistic reality, with a will to integrate in the European and international community and with a dimension of future.

Such an integral training contributes to the making up of a plural, free and solidary society, able to integrate both individual and communal dimensions from the respect and the valuing of its own linguistic and cultural patrimony. Being Catalan the own language of the Balearic Islands, it must therefore articulate all the education. Education and training will more than ever be the main vectors of identification, belonging and social promotion. Education must become a fundamental element in the shaping of the individuals' personality and their development in the bosom of society.

DECREE

CHAPTER I

General Dispositions

Article 2.

Teaching in children's and compulsory basic education has the following aims:

f) To foster and defend the conciousness of belonging to the community of the Balearic Islands, which implies the acknowledgment, respect and regard for our territorial, historical, cultural and linguistic patrimony, with the assumption of those values derived from the reality of its own language and culture, being...

The identifying features of a people that respects and co-exists with another official language throughout the state, and with other languages and cultures.

Article 3.

1. Catalan, as the Balearic Islands' own language, is the language of education. Its use as a vehicular and learning language in childrens' education, primary education, and compulsory secondary education must adapt to the dispositions of the prevailing regulation. Its use must be promoted from schools, and the government must adopt measures aimed at its full normalization.

2. In any case, individual linguistic rights must be respected, according to the prevailing legislation and to each centre's established linguistic project.

3. In order to maintain and recover the Balearic own identity, a special interest must be devoted to the specific knowledge of its history, culture and tradition, and, therefore, the fundamental features to be assured must be determined in the curriculum.

Article 6.

4. School centres must have their own linguistic project, inserted in the educational project and aimed at the full normalization of the Catalan language, which includes the centre's language planning as well as the consideration of the Catalan language, the Balearics' own one, as a vehicular language in education, according to what is established in the prevailing regulation.

Final disposition

This decree shall enter into force the day after its publication in the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands.

Palma, 8th September 2000.

THE PRESIDENT

Francesc Antich i Oliver

The Minister of Education and Culture

Damià Pons i Pons

Note: This is the unofficial English translation abstract. The original text can be found on the website: http://www.troc.es/mercator. We acknowledge with thanks data from the Mercator-Legislation, CIEMEN.

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