EH Bildu has demanded that the counselors of Linguistic Policy, Ibone Bengoetxea, and Education, Begoña Pedrosa, attend the Basque Parliament to detail the causes of the "worrying downward trend" in the educational level of Euskadi highlighted by the PISA Report.
The coalition has presented several initiatives in the Basque Chamber in order to study "with rigor and seriousness" the reasons for the poor results obtained by Basque students in the aforementioned international report.
Through a statement, EH Bildu has requested to avoid "baseless" interpretations of this data. In this line, it has criticized that the counselor of Culture and Linguistic Policy, Ibone Bengoetxea, has "focused on the Basque language" when assessing the PISA results in a radio interview conducted this past Thursday.
According to the parliamentarian Josu Aztiria, "it is irresponsible to relate the PISA results to the linguistic immersion model, as Bengoetxea has done."
Aztiria has reproached the vice-lehendakari for presenting the immersion model "without any analysis or evidence," as "a factor that would explain the poor academic results." In his opinion, these statements "are inseparable from the political responsibility of the Basque Government" in the implementation of the Educational Agreement and the Education Law "to guarantee equal opportunities for students and improve linguistic competencies."
Similarly, he has emphasized that, in the face of the challenge posed by the revitalization process of the Basque language, "it is especially important that public institutions base their diagnoses on linguistic policy and the educational model on data, evidence, and rigorous analysis, and that they act with the responsibility that the political situation demands."
Criticism of the Basque Government for the lack of development of agreements
In this context, Aztiria has stressed the "responsibility" of the Basque Government in the poor PISA results, since "it has not developed the measures we agreed upon in the Educational Agreement to transform the educational system of Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa."
The parliamentarian has recalled that among the pending actions is the transformation of linguistic models and the implementation of a multilingual system centered on the Basque language, "with the aim of ensuring that by the end of compulsory secondary education all students have level B2 in Basque and Spanish, and to make a leap in the development of the Basque language."
For this reason, and in light of the "seriousness" of the words of the counselor of Culture and Linguistic Policy, EH Bildu has requested her urgent appearance in Parliament so that the Basque Government presents its assessment of the PISA results and clarifies "the weight of linguistic immersion" in those results.
The sovereignist coalition has also demanded that the counselor of Education, Begoña Pedrosa, and the Forum of Experts in Evaluation appear before the Chamber, considering that the PISA data "reflect a worrying downward trend."
On the other hand, the parliamentarian Ikoitz Arrese has pointed out that these poor results "have many different causes" and that "given the complexity of the matter, it is essential to analyze them well and have clear measures to take for the future."
"That is why it is important that both the counselor of Education and the Evaluation Forum make their reflection on this matter and the measures they propose for the future known as soon as possible," he concluded.