No preferential use of Catalan for repeat university entry exams
Controversy continues as High Court once again rules in favor of distributing tests in all three languages
Students sitting their repeat university entry exams in September will be asked individually whether they wish to take them in Catalan, Spanish or Aranese – Catalonia's co-official languages – after the High Court ruled, once again, against the preferential use of Catalan.
Although tests have always been available in the three languages, in past years, administrators would distribute them in Catalan and then provide them in the other languages only upon request.
Last June, however, the Assembly for Bilingual Schooling in Catalonia put forth a complaint alleging that this infringed upon students' rights to choose the language they wish to be tested in.
The court then issued a ruling stating that students should be given the opportunity "to individually choose the co-official language they prefer."
Miquel Berga, one of the exam proctors at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, said they would ask each student which language they prefer in order to "protect their personal and linguistic rights."
Some 40,000 students sat the exams in June, with a far smaller number - 5,000 people - taking them again this week from Tuesday to Thursday.