Parents will be able to choose the language they want their children to learn in Valencia, between Spanish and Valenciano.

Parents in the VALENCIA Region will choose whether they want their children to be taught primarily in Spanish or Valenciano from the 2025-2026 school year.

The 60-40 split will be determined by a majority vote in each school. For example, in the 5th primary grade in September next year, a majority vote will decide which language will prevail.

Valencia’s Minister for Education, Jose Antonio Rovira said that the region is getting 560,000 families choose the main teaching languages.

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“The government’s time of deciding is over, and now lessons are taught according to what parents want,” said he.

“This gives the children a choice, and the ability to make decisions that are in their best interest,” he said.

The online voting takes place from 9am on February 25 until 2pm March 2.

Rovira pointed out that his department was ‘neutral’ over the issue and that the ‘voice of the family is key to the process’

He added that whatever the result for each school year, the system will ‘remain’ balanced, with a 20% difference in lessons between one language and another.

Rovira said, “The goal is to have all students be able to speak Spanish and Valenciano by the time they finish their compulsory education.”

Valenciano lessons have been controversial in some areas of the region. This is especially true in the south of Alicante, where the language has a low usage rate.

Nevertheless opposition groups in the Valencian parliament have slammed the vote as an ‘attack on Valenciano’.

Socialist eduction spokesperson, Jose Luis Lorenz, has accused President Carlos Mazon of ‘applying ultraconservative ideology and attacking the language that identifies the Valencian people’.

The far-left Compromis party asked the Valencian Superior Court(TSJ) on Monday to suspend the vote, saying the government wants to ‘pit families against families’ and wanting to start ‘a linguistic war’.

Last week, the TSJ denied similar petitions from two groups pro-Valenciano.

Meanwhile, there have been reports that some teachers are trying to influence voting by suggesting to pupils that they may be moved to another class away from their friends if their parents ‘vote for Spanish’.

Results of the voting are expected to be announced in May.