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Bring on the Fallas!
Vol. 6 Issue 150
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SCAN here for the latest news February 27th - March 12th 2025
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VALENCIA'S Fallas kicked off on Sunday with the traditional opening show and fireworks display at the city's Serranos Towers. Thousands of people gathered in front of the iconic structure in a much-needed moment of celebration, coming four months after the region was struck by the historic DANA floods. Valencia mayor Maria Jose Catala pleaded for unity ‘now more than ever’ and expressed her solidarity with neighbouring towns that bore the brunt of the devastation. From Saturday, there will be daily fireworks at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, starting at 2pm. Until March 15, the gigantic ninot figurines will be on display at the city's Science Museum. They will then be returned to city districts and burnt in the ‘Crema’ at the end of the Fallas on March 19.
WAR OF WORDS
A ROW has erupted between expats and locals over what language to teach children at schools across the Valencia region. It comes as parents began voting this week on the main language in their child’s classroom – Valenciano or Spanish – for the 2025-26 school year. In each class, the winning language will be taught around 60% of the time and the other around 40% (with some classes also in English). The PP-Vox regional government launched the consultation to give parents ‘the choice of what language their children are taught in’. However, the vote has triggered heated clashes between advocates of the differing tongues and exposed cultural-linguistic fault lines between communities and even neighbours.
Bamboozled
Currently, a majority of classes – including maths and science – are taught exclusively in Valenciano, but the vote taking place could upend this. The ballot has been embraced by many expat parents, long bamboozled by having to learn a third language to navigate Valencia’s bureaucratic systems. “For me I think Spanish is more important for my son because he will have the world open to him, but here Valenciano is the dominating lan-
Battle lines are drawn as parents across Valencia vote on which language to teach school pupils By Alex Trelinski
guage,” wrote German mother Jazmin Charlotte Duebelt online, “my son is already having learning difficulties with speaking.” Another expat, Mark Charlesworth, added: “The only people speaking Valenciano are the older generations or those who wish to deliberately exclude a Spanish speaking foreigner - it does happen unfortunately.” Meanwhile, speakers of Valenciano responded by saying ‘you should learn the language of where you live, which in this case is Valenciano.’ Another responded: “Totally agree – it’s the culture of our towns and we have to keep it alive.” Valencia’s Minister of Education, Jose Antonio Rovira, said 560,000 families in the region are eligible to have a say
in the main language of education. Concerned parents have been voting so furiously that the online system has suffered several 20-minute outages since voting began on Tuesday. Each vote will apply to each school specifically, meaning some schools will end up with classes 60% in Spanish and others 60% in Valenciano. The Ministry is not giving a running update on the vote while it is in progress, which ends on March 4. “The time when the government decided the language is over and lessons will be taught based on what parents want,” Rovira stated. “This gives
them a choice and decision-making capacity to follow their will,” he added. Rovira claimed his department was ‘neutral’ over the issue and that the ‘voice of the family is key to the process’ He added that whatever the result for each school year, the system will ‘remain’ balanced, with a 20% difference in lessons between one language and another.
VOTE: Regional education minister Rovira puts the decision to the parents
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Vexed
“The idea is that all students will have a command of Spanish and Valenciano at the end of their compulsory school education,” Rovira added. The issue of lessons in Valenciano has been a vexed one in parts of the region, especially in the south of Alicante province where the language is rarely used. Nevertheless opposition groups in the Valencian parliament have slammed the vote as an ‘attack on Valenciano’. Socialist education
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spokesperson, Jose Luis Lorenz, has accused President Carlos Mazon of ‘applying ultraconservative ideology and attacking the language that identifies the Valencian people’ An attempt by people opposing the vote to get it suspended was rejected by the Valencian Supreme Court on Monday. Meanwhile, there have been reports that some teachers are trying to influence voting by suggesting to pupils that they may be moved to another class away from their friends if their parents ‘vote for Spanish’. According to the Association of Directors of Public Schools (ADEP), the vote has created problems rather than solving them. A spokesperson said: “We are seeing a lot of polarisation between families and discussions over the language issue. [The Ministry] has generated conflict where there was none.”
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