Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider.
Keystone-SDA
Switzerland’s 26 cantons could be obliged to continue teaching a second national language at primary level. The government intends to draft a bill to this effect. This regulation would apply only if the 2004 compromise on languages is abandoned.
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The government is “concerned” by the decision of some German-speaking cantons to postpone the teaching of the second national language to secondary level, it said in a statement on Friday. Such a decision “jeopardises the harmonisation of teaching and national cohesion”.
+ After Zurich, St. Gallen votes to relegate French to secondary school
The government has instructed the interior ministry to draft a bill. The aim is to clarify the place of national languages in education, while taking into account cantonal competencies in education and the differences between language regions.
+ Top teacher questions early French in Swiss schools
With this bill, which will be put out to consultation, the government is preparing “for a possible failure of the harmonisation of language teaching”, which was decided as part of the HarmoS agreement.
Translated from French by DeepL/ts
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