Victory for national languages in local vote

French will continue to be taught as a foreign language in primary schools in the German-speaking canton of Nidwalden. At the ballot box on Sunday, voters said no to a proposal which would have limited teaching to only one additional language, namely English. Just over 60% of voters in the central Swiss canton marked their ballots in favour of maintaining two foreign languages at the primary school level. By rejecting the proposal by the conservative right Swiss People’s Party, Nidwalden remains in line with most other cantons. The model they have adopted institutionalises the teaching of two languages, with one of them another national language. Emotional Language teaching is an emotional issue with political significance in a country with four official languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh. A decision last year by parliament in canton Thurgau – in eastern Switzerland – to scrap French from the curriculum prompted alarm notably in French-speaking … Show more
Source
Culture
– SWI swissinfo.ch