The Dénia government has approved in the plenary session this Thursday, with the votes against Vox and PP, request the Department of Education to maintain the current groups and places in the Official Language School of Dénia and urge it to guarantee that all students have "equitable access to quality linguistic education" before the announcement of the Generalitat last week of cuts in language courses.
Under the presence of EOI student protesters in the plenary session, the Councilor for Education, Melani Ivars, ha expuesto que la supuesta «optimización de recursos» que la Generalitat defiende con esta medida supone «un recorte que ataca al sistema público de Educación y sospechosamente compromete la enseñanza de español para extranjeros -en el caso de Dénia- y del valenciano en otras sedes».
The government has wanted to state that the situation would end with the suppression of 390 places in the center of Dénia (4 French groups, 4 English groups and 4 Spanish groups, which translates into 3 fewer teachers).
Ivars has emphasized that the "most alarming" data is the reduction by half of the offer of Spanish courses for foreigners, which currently has 8 groups and more than 250 students, with a waiting list of 130 people. The new measure will mean that "120 students currently enrolled will be left without a place and those who are taking B1 and B2 this year will not have the possibility of continuing their studies."
«The drastic and generalized suppression of Spanish groups that the Generalitat intends is not understood, taking into account, furthermore, that the EOI are the institution that certifies language proficiency and, therefore, gives foreign students access to the possibility of obtain Spanish nationality," the councilor explained.
Felix Redondo, Vox councilor, has defended that this measure aims to "manage resources well" and has insisted that "what the Generalitat has done is reduce some groups of the EOI because there were not enough people to fill those courses."
"The first thing the City Council has to do so that foreigners learn Spanish is to label in both languages, not to demagogue and say that we are cutting back on quality," Redondo mentioned.
For her part, Marian Moltó, councilor of the PP, has reiterated that the Generalitat is "optimizing resources", under the argument that the Valencian Community is the autonomy that has the most centers per inhabitant in Spain and only 61% of the services are covered. places offered in the EOI and that 32% of enrolled students drop out of their studies.
Melani Ivars concluded by saying that "the data is there and this reorganization does not adapt to the real offer."
