EDUCATION

COULD the Spanish Socialist Party and the centre-right Partido Popular agree on an education policy in the Balearics, please. The Partido Popular, tipped to win power at the local elections next year, announced yesterday that the present system of Catalan teaching in schools would be abolished with parents having the choice of what language their children will be taught in. For the last four years, under the Socialist-led coalition, the number of lessons taught in Catalan have increased dramatically but with the Partido Popular it will be the exact opposite with Castilian Spanish replacing Catalan.

So thousands of children will find that the goal posts have been moved and their learning pattern disrupted yet again. Now we all know that education is vital but what you can´t do is change the curriculum every four years. The Socialists and the Partido Popular, who are obviously the two main parties who are going to be forming successive governments, need to reach an accord so that there is little or no change whoever is in power. There needs to be a cross-party accord on the teaching of Catalan and Castilian Spanish. These are big issues which can´t be changed at the drop of a hat. I feel sorry for the poor children, who must have a major language muddle.