Visita a HABE de miembros de la Oficina de Lenguas Minoritarias ...

Visit to HABE by members of the Office of Minority Languages in Europe and the European Network partners th th14 and 15 June 2010 14-06-2010 LOURDES AUZMENDI, the Basque Government’s Minister for Linguistic Policy, welcomed the conference delegates, members of the Office of Minority Languages in Europe and the European Network partners. During her speech, the Basque Minister highlighted the circumstances of over forty million bilingual or trilingual European citizens who regularly use a minority and minorized language in their personal and working relations, and the need to design balanced linguistic policies in the framework of the European Union in order to accommodate the mainstream use of those languages. EUJENIO MUJIKA, HABE General Manager, said he was delighted to see that the Office and Network members had shown an active interest in learning about the Basque for Adults (Euskaldunizacion) and literacy work run by HABE in the Basque Autonomous Community and by Euskarabidea in the Autonomous Community of Navarra. The fundamental HABE challenges are set out below:  Funding the network of euskaltegis (adult Basque language schools) given the current economic downturn.  Designing a single Basque language curriculum, approved by the different public authorities in the Basque speaking area.  Application of skills tests thoroughly and professionally.  Preparing educational-pedagogical materials to teach Basque for Adults and the use of the new technologies as support tools in that process.  Synergies with the social media stakeholders to use television and radio stations to disseminate specific adult-learning programmes. ANTTON IÑURRITEGI, HABE Inspection officer, provided an updated quantitative overview of the adult Basque language learning process in the Basque Autonomous Community. The concepts developed are: Euskaltegis:  105 material and human resources structures created specifically for the Basque for Adults process. Ownership:  Public centres that are municipally owned or by district councils.  Private, mainly teachers’ cooperatives.  Self-learning centres. Since the 2002-2003 academic year, the euskaltegi networks have run according to standardised criteria in the sphere of non-formal teaching: 40 publicly-funded euskaltegis that cover 29% of the existing demand and 64 authorised private euskaltegis that deal with 73% of the demand. During the last academic year (2008- Page 1 of 14  2009), 38,957 students aged 16 or over have attended these courses to promote the use of the Basque Language. Students Characteristics:  Aged 16 or over.  Average age: 34 years old  Between 16 and 20: a progressive ageing of these students has been noted over the last twenty years (down from 32.38% to the 13.52%).  68% women; 32% men.  Training level: a qualitative increase in the educational level of the students has been seen, with the number of graduates rising from 16.39% to 28%. Profession:  20% students  18% civil servants  8% teachers  4% liberal professions  4% housewives  9% technicians  14% specialist professions  4% non-specialist professions  19% others Enrolment fees paid by each student:  €1-1.20 per class hour at private euskaltegis (€330-370 per academic year)  €2 per hour at private euskaltegis (€660 per academic year) Teaching staff  1,500 teachers  200 non-academic staff  Average age: 38 years old  70% women; 30% men. Academic training:  58% graduates with 5-year degrees  19% teacher training degrees  12% graduates with 3-year degrees  11% authorised instructors Minimum legal requirement:  University graduates with 3-year degrees Course characteristics Courses taught according to their intensity: Winter courses (from October to June): Page 2 of 14  < 10 hours a week 33.48 % 10-20 hours 35.80 % > 20 hours a week 4.89 % Residential 1.29 % Summer courses: Summer intensive 8.98 % Summer intensive 3.54 % Self-taught 12.01 % MIKEL OLAZIREGI, HABE Management Service officer, raised some initial points: Legal Status: HABE is an administrative public autonomous Institute, under the Department for Linguistic Policy at the Basque Government's Ministry of Culture. Mission: Adult education and teaching of Basque to the adult population of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. Duties: Directing, coordinating and fostering the Basque for Adults process in the BAC and in Basque clubs. With regard to the HABE institutional structure, the entity has a Governing Board, to which the General Manager answers. The General Management is structured into two divisions:  The Language Educational Division  Management Division. The Language Educational Division:  Curriculum Development Section  Evaluation Section  Training Section  Educational Material Section  Specific Programme Section  Educational Resources Section  The Management Division:  Inspection Section  IT Section  Administrative and Economics Section  Labour and Legal Section  Reception and Information  Library where 67 public employees currently work. The HABE budget for 2010 was around 45 million euros. HABE has its own consolidated revenue and expenditure budget as an autonomous public Institute. Expenditure budget: 34 million euros (76%) Page 3 of 14  It is made up by the subsidies that HABE earmarks for the euskaltegis and self-learning centres, plus student grants. HABE agreements with IVAP, Osakidetza, Department of Education… HABE pays the enrolment fees for students from other sectors (10%). Consequently, 86% of the budget is used as grants. 14% are the costs of the entity as such, 8% of which are staff expenses. Revenue budget Funding sources:  Basque Government’s Ministry of Culture: 30.6 million euros (68%)  Public sector student enrolments. Agreement billing: 13.2 million euros (29%)  Own income (sale of publications, exam fees, certificate fees…): 1.3 million euros (3%) Budgetary priorities:  Subsidies and grants to different stakeholders in the sector:  To euskaltegis, managed for the academic year by two call for application processes:  Municipal publicly-funded euskaltegis (HABE pays the salaries of the permanent members of staff): 12.6 million euros.  Private euskaltegis: 22.2 million euros. The basic modules are subsidised by class hour according to efficiency parameter incentives.  Public call for applications from students who accredit exceeding knowledge levels.  Possibility of fully or partially recovering the amount of the enrolment fee paid by the student: 1.8 million euros.  Basque Clubs: Separate call for application process: 230.000 euros. LUIS MARI GONZÁLEZ DE TXABARRI, member of the HABE Curriculum Department, went over the work on curriculum development at HABE between 1981 to 2010. The first attempt at defining Basque for Adults curriculum dates back to 1981. In 1984, a curriculum was defined, which included the academic experience gathered at the HABE pilot euskaltegis and at the municipal euskaltegis. In particular, the 1984 curriculum laid down the work rate, the learning loads and the teaching load of each teacher. In 1987, the third test curriculum was published and it would be implemented in 1989. The communicative approach was already included in this curriculum. HABE therefore worked with four proposals prior to the 2000 curriculum, that is currently in force. There are three curriculum subjects defined: Administration, the euskaltegi and the teacher. The Administration is in charge of designing and defining contents, methodology, implementation times, materials, rates. The 2000 curriculum radically changed the approach: it attempts to define a basic framework for action to meet the needs detected over the last twenty years. Page 4 of 14  Four characteristics:  It is a basic design to be developed  Democratises the curriculum design by making room for new stakeholders  It affects both the process and the product: o The sociolinguistic contexts at mesocurricular level (centre and microcurricular) (euskaltegis) and the specific needs of the students at microcurricular level (classroom) come into play in the design, development and implementation of the curriculum.  It turns the student into the hub of the process Special mention should be made of the following among the epistemological and psycho-pedagogical bases of the current Basic Curricular Design: At language level, the transfusing of:  knowledge to use  a synthetic vision of language to an analytical one  the product to the integration of the process  the phrase to text and to the pragmatic  correction to adaptation  linguistic knowledge to communicative capacity. And, at psycho-pedagogical, the constructivist conception of learn where the following stand out:  Logical significance of the contents  Psychological significance for the student, and  favourable attitude towards learning The basic curriculum implemented by HABE must be updated and adapted to its needs for each euskaltegi according to the socio-linguistic situation and the characteristics of its students. JUXTO EGAÑA and AINTZANE IBARZABAL, HABE Department of Assessment and Accreditation managers, outlined the HABE certification system (2003-2010). Assessment as a core and central aspect of the learning process and certification as a partial aspect of the assessment. HABE defines its curriculum as a 4-level system (corresponding to B , B , C and C of 1 2 1 2 the European Benchmark Framework) and 12 sub-levels. HABE has a unified accreditation system for the students of all euskaltegis, developed into parameters of reliability, validity and p