Are Advertisements Beneficial or misleading?

Points to be known:

·    Advertisement are an integral part of modern life.

·  Advertisement is a process of promotion of goods and services through media, such as TV, Radio, Newspaper etc.

·   The focus of today's advertisements is, by hook or crook, to promote the business.

In Favour:

·  All kinds of businesses depend on advertisement, particularly at the time of launching new products.

·  It is the fastest way to get the point across. Through advertising, anyone can reach large number of people in a short period of time.

·  People can know the whole range of products available in the market along with their price.

· People can select the products of their need.

·  In the absence of advertisements they cannot possibly know which products are available in the market.

· The recruitment columns in the newspapers offer wide opportunities to job seekers to get employment as per their qualifications, experience and skills. Loads of people get suitable placements due to these advertisements.

·  There are business opportunities, sale and purchase of various types of goods from household goods to old vehicles.

·  There are advertisements about lost or found things, missing things.

·  There can be alerts in commercials about a criminal on the loose, warning the people to be careful.

·  Many students buy newspapers for classifieds.

·  Parents can search suitable match for their young children.

·  Without advertising, we wouldn't have our favourite TV shows.

·  Without advertising, newspapers would be very expensive and most people wouldn't buy it.

Against:

·  Cost of advertisement affects the cost of product. It will become burden to costumer.

·   The promoters only emphasise on the merits.

·  Advertisers present the product as a favourite of the celebrities. This has great influence on young minds.

·  People prefer ready made food than fruits and vegetables through advertising. These new habits are adversely impacting their health.

·  Some pesticides, though in very small quantities were found in common cold drinks. But advertisers are not revealing this fact.

·  All cosmetic products are advertised in the name of fruit extracts, the chemical contents are neither displayed nor printed on the product cover.

· Teenagers are attracted by cigarette, alcohol and diet pills advertisements, and their health is adversely effecting by these habits.

· Consumers tend to be manipulated by an advertisement's promise that the product will do something special for them, which upsets their budget.

·  An advertisement for an expensive good is likely to create an ill-feeling in the mind of a poor teenager who cannot afford it. Such feelings often lead to hatred and anti-social activities.

Conclusion:-

 The advertisers should keep fine balance between reality and urge to promote the product. There is nothing in this world which is perfect, everything has some good points and some bad. It's better to ignore the disadvantages and concentrate on the positive role that the advertisements are playing today in laying bare the whole market before us so that we exercise a judicious choice. It's up to us to monitor ourselves.

Candy Crush Saga: The Science Behind Our Addiction

A year after the game's mobile launch, we still can't stop playing. The app's designer and psychology experts weigh in on exactly what makes it so irresistible.

If you haven’t heard of Candy Crush, it’s the mobile game that’s so addictive, players say they have left their children stranded at school, abandoned housework and even injured themselves as they try to reach new levels of the game.

Candy Crush has been played 151 billion times since it launched as an app on mobile devices exactly year ago. And it’s the first game to ever be No. 1 on iOS, Android and Facebook at the same time. Candy Crush’s creator, King, a Stockholm-based company, says 1 in every 23 Facebook users plays it. And while Candy Crush is free, the in-game purchases that some players choose to make add up. Think Gaming, which releases gaming analytics, estimates that it takes in $875,382 per day. (By comparison, another insanely popular mobile game, Angry Birds, takes in an estimated $6,381 daily.)

All that adds up to some seriously distracted users. A survey by Ask Your Target Market polled 1,000 players and found that 32% of them ignored friends or family to play the game, 28% played during work, 10% got into arguments with significant others over how long they played, and 30% said they were “addicted.”

But there are lots of amusing games out there, so what’s so addictive about this one?

We asked Tommy Palm, one of the game’s designers, what the King team did to get us hooked. We also called a few psychology experts and players to understand the backstory on why their tactics worked so well. Here are the nine reasons they say Candy Crush is so irresistible:

1. It Makes You Wait

Perhaps the most genius element of Candy Crush is its ability to make you long for it. You get five chances (lives) to line up the requisite number of candy icons. Once you run out of lives, you have to wait in 30-minute increments to continue play. Or, if you’re impatient, you can pay to get back in the game — which is why it’s bringing in so much revenue. “You can’t just play all the time. You run out of lives,” says Andy Jarc, 22, one of the few players to reach level 440 in the game. “So the fact that they kind of constrain you — the whole mantra, ‘You always want what you can’t have.’ I can’t have more lives and I want them.”

“I think it makes the game more fun long term,” says designer Palm. “If you have a game that consumes a lot of mental bandwidth, you will continue playing it without noticing that you’re hungry or need to go to the bathroom. But then you binge and eventually you stop playing. It’s much better from an entertainment point of view to create a more balanced experience where you have natural breaks.”

2. We’re All Suckers for Sweet Talk

You flick four candies in a row, and they zap away. Candies above begin to cascade down, making even more matches. At the end words pop up on your screen, accompanied by a voice that says “Sweet” or “Delicious.” This feedback is essential for player immersion. “Positive rewards are the main reason people become addicted to things,” says Dr. Kimberly Young, a pioneering expert on Internet and gaming addiction who treats those addicted to the cyberworld. “When you play the game, you feel better about yourself.”

3. You Can Play With One Hand

According to Palm, the icons and setup were created so players could multitask. You can play Candy Crush while carrying a drink, toting a purse or bag, clinging to a subway pole, or hiding your phone under the table. That’s a huge advantage and makes this game perfect for a train ride, a distraction while you’re waiting to see a doctor, or something to get you through boring meetings. Plus, you can play offline as well — so even if you’re stuck in a tunnel, you can be “crushing.”

4. There’s Always More

According to Palm, the Candy Crush team updates the game constantly and creates new levels every two weeks. Right now there are 544 levels. “Just three years ago, a game with 30 levels would be astonishing,” King says. “And now with this game, it has raised the bar with how much content a mobile game should and will have.”

Plus, on any single level, there’s no way to fail. If you run out of options on a board — and that happens once in a blue moon — the board immediately resets. You never get stuck. You can’t lose. “I believe this is part of the reinforcing pattern which keeps you playing,” says Dr. Dinah Miller, a psychiatrist who has written about the addicting elements of another popular game, Angry Birds. The game only ends when you’ve run out of your allotted number of moves “and you can end that frustration by buying your way out.”

5. You Don’t Have to Pay – but if You Want to, It’s Easy

King reports that of all the players on its last level — 544 — more than 60% of them didn’t pay a cent to buy extra lives or chances to get there. But if you want to pay, it’s easy. Connected to Facebook or the app store? Just click to pay.

6. It Taps Into Our Inner Child

“Many people have had a very positive feeling about candy since they were kids,” says Palm. “And it makes for a really nice visual game board with a lot of color and interesting shapes.” In fact, when you play you feel as if you’re transported into an entire Candy Land experience. The game pieces are candy, and the homepage for the game looks like the traditional Candy Land board, with your Facebook friends’ pictures displayed as pieces on that board, sitting at whatever level they’re stuck on.

7. It’s Social

Social games — any game that allows you to connect with your friends through a social-media platform like Facebook — have taken off. Whether it’s Words With Friends, Kingdoms of Camelot or Candy Crush, the ability to play with, or compete against, friends is irresistible. “Look, nobody’s coming to me because they have a clinical addiction to Candy Crush,” says Young. “It’s more of a social addiction, if you will.”

8. It’s an Escape

“When you read the research about gaming,” Young says, “you’re often looking at people who are distracting themselves from something in their lives.” The relaxing exercise of lining up candies to the tune of upbeat music is a perfect stress reliever.

9. It Grows on You

This isn’t your average “line up three” game. “I started playing, and at first I was like whatever, it’s just bejeweled,” says Jarc. “But as I played more and more, it became addicting.”

King’s high-level of attentiveness toward updating gameplay has made it better quality than most casual games that are out there. When players took to Facebook to express their frustration with level 65 — notoriously one of the hardest levels in the game — King went into the game and altered the level to make it easier (though not too easy) multiple times.

The Negative Effects of Mobile Games

As hardware power increases, and prices decrease, the smartphone has quietly made quite a foothold as a platform in the video game industry. Many companies are using smartphones to target previously unreachable market segments in video gaming, such as casual gamers and women. As this platform becomes more popular, researchers are beginning to notice potential problems and dangerous behaviors associated with this type of video gaming that has never been observed with any other type of gaming.


Dangerous Distractions

The first negative effect of mobile gaming is the potential for distraction when performing another more important activity, such as driving. Video games should never be played while driving. Some mobile games use the internet and have the ability to push information and notifications to a player even when the player is not actively playing. The game may send these alerts while a player is driving, and the player may not identify the alert's origin as being from a game, or be tempted to check it anyways, creating a potentially dangerous situation.

Loss of Productivity Distractions

Many mobile games have a social aspect, or rely on other players taking turns or participating in the game. In games like this, it's common to have alerts and updates throughout the day about various things happening in different games. It's also very tempting to take several minutes and quickly check on a game, or make a quick move. These micro-transactions can quickly add up over the course of a day or week, resulting in many wasted hours of productivity.

Sleep Problems

Mobile phones and video games have both been independently linked to disruption in the sleep patterns of children in studies. Jan Van den Bulck, a senior lecturer in psychology at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, found through surveys that one in five teenagers reported being awakened regularly by their mobile devices. Playing video games on mobile phones will no doubt continue to prevent children from getting the rest they need. Disruption in sleep patterns, like the ones caused by mobile games, have been linked to behavior issues, and sleepiness during the day.

Out of Control Spending

Many mobile games operate on a "free to premium" business model, where the basic game is free, but extras within the game cost money. Some players have found themselves spending large sums of money while playing games, in an out of control fashion. These types of games are potentially very dangerous to gamers with any type of addictive personalities. There have also been reports of parents allowing their children to use their devices to play their free games, and their children have somehow managed to purchase items accidentally, with no way for the parent to receive a refund.

The Advantages of Mobile Phone Games

Mobile-phone gaming has become a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Widespread ownership of cellphones ensures high market penetration for game developers, many of whom have departments dedicated solely to mobile gaming. In addition, the primary demographic for video games (youth and young adults) are among those most likely to own a cellphone. All in all, it is because of several specific advantages of mobile-phone games that the mobile gaming environment has become such a mammoth in the entertainment sector. 

Convenience

Part of mobile-phone gaming popularity is the ability to be taken anywhere. Once a game is downloaded onto a phone, it doesn't even need an Internet connection to run. The application runs through the phone's hard drive just like on a laptop computer. This means people can play mobile -hone games anywhere, at any time, even if they don't have Internet access or a phone signal. Best of all, most phone are small enough that games can be played in places where traditional games cannot, such as in a car or a waiting room. 

Cost

Most mobile-phone games range in price from just a few dollars to no more than $20. This makes them much cheaper than console games, which are usually $50 or more in 2011. The comparatively low cost allows mobile-phone gamers to save money or try out more games than their traditional gaming counterparts. The low prices also have the advantage of making mobile-phone games more accessible. Plus, people already have the platforms on which to play these games (their phones.) To play an Xbox, PS3 or computer game, users must first buy several hundred dollars worth of console equipment. 

Creativity

The low cost of mobile-phone games ties into another key advantage - the huge variation among mobile games. Since mobile games can be produced faster and cheaper than other video games, developers can take more of a risk in trying out new concepts or ideas. Developers don't stand to lose as much if an experimental game is unpopular. The result is remarkable creativity in mobile gaming. In addition, both large gaming corporations and tiny designer firms can compete in the same market. The low cost of production allows for further diversity in the gaming market, and further variation in mobile games as a whole. 

Community

Mobile phones were not originally meant to be a platform for gaming. They were meant as a means of connection and communication. These core values present themselves in mobile games as a distinct advantage. Many games have multiplayer features, online leader-boards or even chat functions where players can message other players with the same game. Instead of isolated gamers playing by themselves, the market has opened to reflect the direction of mainstream gaming -- toward groups of gamers playing together, even from remote locations.

ADVERTISING IS HARMFUL

Advertising has grown to be an industry worth many billions of dollars across the world. Online advertising alone is believed to be worth $24 billion a year. Almost all public space has some advertisements in sight and all forms of media, from newspapers to the cinema, are also filled with adverts. Whilst this helps companies sell their products, and helps consumers to learn what is on offer, many believe that this huge amount of advertising can be harmful. It may make people want too much, or things that they cannot have, or it might make them feel inadequate when they don't have something. Research shows that children can be particularly open to these kinds of risk.

There are too many advertisements in everyday life.
POINT	COUNTERPOINT
The sheer volume of advertising in our society is incredible. You cannot watch television, ride on a bus or even walk down the street without someone trying to sell you something or inform you of something. Recent research suggests people living in a city today sees up to 5,000 advertisements a day. 50% of those surveyed said they thought 'advertising today was out of control'. People shouldn't have to go about their lives having their minds saturated with such a vast quantity of, in most cases, redundant and profiteering information. They should be able to go about their daily lives in peace without being forced to watch, listen or view an advertisement.	Though there are a great many advertisements in everyday life, there are not so many that they can't simply be ignored. Advertisements attempt to get you to buy a product, if you're not interested, then don't buy the product. For every person who finds all the advertisements stressful, another person finds them enjoyable and something to read or watch while they make their daily journey to work or school. Out of control could mean simply that customers think businesses are spending too much on advertising. Without proof that the number of advertisements is having a negative effect, the point is worthless.
People are given too much choice, which makes them less happy.
POINT	COUNTERPOINT
Advertising leads to many people being overwhelmed by the endless need to decide between competing demands on their attention – this is known as the tyranny of choice or choice overload. Recent research suggests that people are on average less happy than they were 30 years ago - despite being better off and having much more choice of things to spend their money on. The claims of adverts crowd in on people, raising expectations about a product and leading to inevitable disappointment after it is bought. A recent advertisement for make-up was banned in Britain due to the company presenting its product as being more effective than it actually was. Shoppers feel that a poor purchase is their fault for not choosing more wisely, and regret not choosing something else instead. Some people are so overwhelmed that they cannot choose at all.	People are unhappy because they can't have everything, not because they are given too much choice and find it stressful. In fact, advertisements play a crucial role in ensuring that what money people have, they spend on the most appropriate product for themselves. If advertisements were not permitted, people would waste money on an initial product when, given the choice, they clearly would go for another. A meta-analysis incorporating research from 50 independent studies found no meaningful connection between choice and anxiety, but speculated that the variance in the studies left open the possibility that choice overload could be tied to certain highly specific and as yet poorly understood pre-conditions.
Advertisements are an attempt to brainwash customers.
POINT	COUNTERPOINT
People cannot just choose to ignore advertising, because advertisers use many underhand methods to get their message across. Posters have attention grabbing words, or provocative pictures. Some adverts today are even being hidden in what seem like pieces or art or public information so people don't realise they are being marketed to. The introduction of digital screens allows businesses to alter their advertising to respond to specific events, making advertisements not only everywhere, but seemingly all-knowing. By targeting people's unconscious thoughts adverts are a form of brainwashing that take away people's freedoms to make choices.	Adverts which use very sly methods like subliminal images (images which are shown so quickly the viewer doesn't consciously realise they saw them) are already banned. The other forms of advertising are just companies being creative. There is no difference from supermarkets being painted bright colours to make their food seem more appetising or even people wearing make-up to improve their image. People make unconscious judgements all the time, and we frequently try to influence these choices by the way we present ourselves. This isn't brainwashing, so neither is advertising
Advertisements try to make people feel bad about not having the product.
POINT	COUNTERPOINT
Many adverts do more than just advertising products. Some try to make people feel inferior if they don't have the product, or if they have something which the product would change. Perceptions of beauty and fashion in particular have been terribly distorted. Many young people have low self-esteem, and lead unhealthy lifestyles because they feel they should be thinner and more attractive like the models they see in adverts. This leads to serious problems like eating-disorders and self-harm. Research that proved this effect also concluded that 'the media can boost self-esteem (happiness with one's self) where it is providing examples of a variety of body shapes. However, it often tends to portray a limited (small) number of body shapes'	The media and celebrity magazines do much more harm, by mocking unattractive or overweight people, and glorifying models who are often dangerously thin. Adverts never criticise people - that would be terrible for the companies behind them. Their aim is to understand and provide what people want, and so their adverts only ever reflect what people think. If people's perceptions are wrong, then it not the advertisers' job to put them right, but politicians, the media and schools.
Advertisements tell children that they should have everything they want.
POINT	COUNTERPOINT
Advertising gives the impression, especially to children, that they can and should have everything they want. This makes people too interested in material things. People are becoming more selfish and obsessed with their possessions, and losing their values of patience, hard work, moderation and the importance of non-material things like family and friends. This harms their relationships and their personal development, which has serious effects for society as a whole.	Our society is built around the idea that companies produce things that people want, and this is what makes us prosperous. If consumers suddenly stopped wanting to buy so many products then what happens to the people whose job it is to make them? The economy will suffer terribly. Of course some people take materialism too far, but most people buy just what they need and then a little extra when they treat themselves. This is a much better situation than one in which people can only afford to buy the things they need - that would be a step backwards.

Classrooms stay empty as Balearics teachers strike enters second week

Thousands march against PP premier's new trilingual learning model
ANDREU MANRESA Palma de Mallorca 25 SEP 2013 - 13:47 CET
Protestors converge on the regional assembly in Palma de Mallorca on Tuesday. 

An unprecedented strike by teaching staff in the Balearic Islands has entered its second week, bringing the public education system to a virtual standstill at the start of the new school year. The sector has taken to the streets to protest against a trilingual learning model imposed by the Popular Party regional government of José Ramón Bauzá, which has demoted the vehicular language, Catalan, in classrooms in favor of English.

The scale of support for the strike is undeniable, with thousands marching in Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera. A social fund set up to offset the salary losses suffered by striking teachers has raised more than 100,000 euros and renowned Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló has donated an etching to be auctioned for the cause.

In Ibiza and Formentera the authorities admit a 27-percent following, which labor unions place at 90. In Mallorca, the government claims a 9.5-percent turnout and the strikers 55 percent. In Menorca, the intensity of the strike has lessened. There appears to be no immediate solution on the horizon with both parties holding firm. The government has called the unions to the negotiating table but there is no concrete dialogue aimed at bringing the strike to an end.

A fund set up for lost earnings has raised more than 100,000 euros
Last Friday parents kept their children home and demonstrations were organized Sunday in Palma, Mahón, Ibiza and Formentera. On Tuesday, a large crowd descended on the regional assembly to reiterate its rejection of the new education model, which the regional PP pushed through just before the school year began to avoid a legal wrangle. The Balearics Supreme Court had temporarily suspended the implementation of the decree pending further study.

"It is a serious situation that we have gone a week without classes but the government takes two to three weeks to assign a substitute for an absent teacher," said a spokesman for the strikers. There are 164,000 schoolchildren in the Balearics of whom 54,000 attend private schools, where the strike is not an issue. Around half of the 10,500 teachers in public centers remain on strike.

In every center there is a nucleus of unions and associations that reject the trilingual model, including conservative groups. "We have ended with the imposition of immersion classes and moved toward freedom," said Bauzá, who blames the high drop-out rate (39 percent) on the model, though without statistical support.

The trilingual system is being rolled out in phases, with full implementation envisaged across all age groups within five years.

On Monday, in Porto Cristo, Manacor, just one child turned up for class. In Son Gotleu, Palma, 60 of the usual 300 students answered the roll call. "We are prepared to go on this week and the next," said a teacher Monday. "There is no talk of backtracking; we will continue." While many families support the strike, the PP says there is great social pressure to keep children home and has threatened sanctions for those who do so.

"Some teachers are trying to persuade parents not to bring their children to school," said PP deputy Magda Prohens. "They have an obligation; they are paid a public salary to give classes."

Spain: Indefinite teachers’ strike provoked by language rights' attack

Monday, September 23, 2013 By Dick Nichols, Barcelona

Thousands of university lecturers protest in front of the rectory of the University of the Balearic Islands in support of striking teachers.

The school year should have already begun on the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula), but it hasn’t. Since September 16, high school and primary teachers have been on an indefinite strike.

In Palma, capital of Mallorca, up to 6000 teachers have been demonstrating daily outside the main government building. When the ceremony marking the start of the Balearic Islands’ university term was held, a swathe of lecturers walked out to express their solidarity with the thousands of teachers protesting outside.

What has it taken to drive the teachers to such an extreme ― with no wages and dependent on voluntary contributions to their strike fund?

Why do all public sector teachers’ unions support the strike, both the “non-political” professional associations and the “political” unions associated with the major parties ― including the Balearic Island branch of the tame-cat National Association of Teachers of Education (ANPE), viewed as closest to the right-wing People’s Party (PP) that runs the islands’ regional government?

Two assaults on education and culture by regional and national PP administration have combined to drive the teachers to such high-stakes action.

Cuts and cultural attacks

There are the vandalising cuts to education funding, wages and working conditions, accompanied by the “reform” of the national syllabus by national education minister Jose Ignacio Wert.

These assaults have already produced huge stoppages and protests elsewhere in the Spanish state (especially in Madrid, where teacher’s resistance took the form of a “green tide” of protesters wearing the movement’s emblematic green T-shirt).

The Balearic Islands, under the PP government of premier Jose Ramon Bauza and education minister Joana Maria Camps, is where the PP axe has cut deepest. Since May 2010, the teachers’ working week has risen from 35 hours to 37.5 hours and their wages have fallen on average by 25%.

The 2013-2014 school year is set to start 1000 teachers short (8.3% of the teaching body) for the same enrolment of students.

The second factor is the Balearic Islands’ government’s new Integrated Language Procedure (TIL). This downgrades the Balearic variant of Catalan, the language of the islands for 800 years and of its school instruction up until now, into one of three languages to be taught in the education system, along with Castilian (Spanish) and English.

This has turned teacher anger into extreme outrage.

Bauza’s pretext for the move on Catalan’s status as the main language of instruction is the need to make more syllabus time available for teaching in English, portrayed as the passport to “a decent future for our kids”.

Further fuelling the fire of teacher fury has been the despotic response of the Bauza government to any opposition. In July, when three high school headmasters on Menorca simply communicated to the education department the disagreement of their school councils with the proposal, they were suspended.

When the education department’s representative on Menorca then resigned in protest, he was replaced by a reliable-looking priest from the ultra-conservative Catholic grouping Opus Dei. However, the curate had to resign before even starting the job because the outrage from big sections of the local Catholic community was so great.

Only now has Bauza been able to find a stooge willing to take the job ― a PP local councillor innocent of any connection with education.

On September 5, the timetable for TIL implementation was provisionally suspended by the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands on appeal from one of the teaching unions. Bauza immediately repackaged the timetable as an emergency regulation to sideline the court.

As for the tone from the government benches, here is PP deputy Antoni Camps: “The positive side of this strike is that will know the name and surname of those who are concerned about the future of our children and those, on the other hand, who are playing with the students to achieve political goals.”

During the present strike high school students supporting the strike have been detained by police (with their number badges hidden) and had mobile phones confiscated. Staff and students have been threatened with suspension for wearing red-and-yellow bows at school to show support for Catalan and opposition to TIL.

However, none of this has intimidated the movement―in the schools the students are putting out YouTube videos expressing their hatred of TIL and their solidarity with the teachers, often in songs that cleverly parody recent Catalan hits.

Why TIL?

TIL has not come out of the blue―it is simply the latest attack of the Bauza government in its war to reverse the 30 years of gradual consensus-based normalisation of the role of the Catalan language in the Balearic Islands, a recovery after its effective outlawing from public life during the years of the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975).

Since he won a majority at the June 2011 regional elections, Bauza ― who had been preselected within the PP by faking sympathy for its more “Mallorcan” wing ― has been dutifully carrying out a program of de-Catalanisation that was never even hinted at in his election campaign.

Bauza's actions include: eliminating knowledge of Catalan as a requirement of public service employment (described by the University of the Balearic Islands as condemning the language to “progressive eradication” and opposed by all public sector unions); reducing the use of Catalan by the public broadcaster; and closing or defunding a range of cultural institutions.

Particularly important was the 2011 upgrading of Castilian as a language of instruction alongside Catalan, and segregating students according to their choice (against all pedagogical advice, including that of the Schools Council of the Balearic Islands).

Such moves were enough to enrage tens of thousands, including many PP voters, leading to a 50,000-strong “Yes to Our Language” demonstration in Palma on March 25 last year. The PP-backed counter-demonstration attracted 34.

Yet in June this year, Bauza’s main plan ― to show that, once parents had the choice of having their children schooled in Castilian, enrolment in Catalan education would drop sharply ― flopped miserably.

The education ministry claimed that about 70% of parents enrolled their children for Catalan schooling, and 30% for Castilian schooling.

However, a thorough survey of primary school enrolment by the main teachers’ union, the Interunion Syndicate of Workers (STEI-i), revealed that the ministry had been lying: enrolments for three-six year-olds revealed an 86% to 90.5% preference for schooling in Catalan. Only in a few Catholic schools did the breakdown approach the ministry’s figures, by 71% to 29%.

The reaction of the government to that defeat was to press ahead stubbornly with the TIL, avoiding any real consultation with the education community.

Crash through?

To introduce a “trilingual” syllabus TIL will reduce the obligatory minimum hours of teaching in Catalan from 50% to 30% or less. Teachers with only basic English will now have to teach subjects like mathematics and ecology in that tongue, “helped” by the most rudimentary of textbooks.

What explains this anti-educational madness, which has even led to the resignation of PP office-holders? It’s not due to the Balearic Islands’ students’ low level of Castilian ― that’s already better than that of students in several mainland Castilian-only regions.

At its heart lies the conservative, neo-Francoist, obsession that Spain, “one and indivisible”, is under threat from the Catalan, Basque and Galician minorities. In particular, every advance for the Catalan identity ― borne along by the burgeoning Catalan independence movement and the spread of Catalan language and culture ― just has to be stopped.

Bauza’s war is thus part of the endless PP-driven moves to force the Catalan government to introduce Castilian as a language of instruction. It is part of the same offensive as grotesque operations like the Aragonese PP government’s decision to redefine the Catalan spoken along the border with Catalonia as the “Aragonese Language Specific to the Eastern Region”.

At the time of writing, the strike, which began with 90% participation, is holding up, although participation had fallen to 55% by day five. Yet the daily protests show no sign of waning and the members of the Balearic Islands government simply cannot appear in public.

A strong point of the strike is the role of the cross-union teachers’ assembly, with group in every school and a website also keeping teachers and the public informed and inoculated against Bauza’s black propaganda.

All the signs are of a vicious drawn-out fight. The Bauza government has decided that it must win the confrontation, rejecting all offers of mediation, including by the chancellor of the University of the Balearic Islands.

If the teaches are to win, they will need every bit of support they can get.

TEACHERS' STRIKE - Balearic style 17 / 9 / 13

The education system in the Balearic islands has been thrown into total chaos due to what is claimed to be an illegal implementation of a totally crazy, bizarre, stupendous new law. Read a summary of the situation on The Ibiza Sun:

Difficult Situation

Headlines were dominated this week by the new law concerning the integration of languages which will see children being taught in Castillian Spanish, Catalan and English at all levels, which some education experts insist is just not viable at the present time. They claim it would mean that certain subjects would have to be taught in a language that the pupils are not used to; for example, to learn mathematics in English when the teacher’s command of that language is sketchy would be very difficult. The prime mover of this new legislation is Joana María Camps, the Balearic Education Councillor, and all eleven headmasters of the secondary schools in Ibiza and Formentera have demanded that she resigns over her handling of the new system. By the time this edition of the Ibiza Sun hits the streets, it is highly likely that teachers at these schools will have gone on strike, action which had been threatened since well before the beginning of the new school year, and has no timescale, although with teachers not being paid whilst on strike, it is unlikely to last too long.

The head teachers of the secondary schools in Ibiza and the one in Formentera have not rejected the idea of presenting their resignations en masse, but are waiting to see the reactions of their counterparts, both in Mallorca and Menorca. In the latter Island, disciplinary action has already been taken out on three schools there due to their refusal to implement the new law.

The Parents Associations of the various education centres are understandably concerned about the situation, and the President of the Association which governs Ibiza and Formentera, Conchi Romero, said that they fully appreciate the position that the teachers find themselves in, adding that they have had to pay for the consequences of decisions which have been made in the public education system by the current head of the Govern, José Ramón Bauza and his team over the past two years, but that their main concern is for the people who will be most seriously disadvantaged by the strike - the children. Education has been one of the departments which has experienced the most cuts, with wages being slashed, jobs lost, class sizes increased and auxiliary teachers, who had been helping children with learning problems, dismissed.

It was initially hoped that a last minute meeting between the two sides would lead to an agreement, but it was reported that negotiations had broken down on Friday, resulting in the indefinite strike starting on Monday.

In a nutshell, the teachers are being forced to teach many subjects in English. Anyone who has had dealings with teachers at schools in Ibiza know that the vast majority of teachers cannot speak a jot of the language!

At a time when the schools have record numbers of pupils and less teachers, having taken pay cuts on the chin, this latest move is just plain crazy.

It is hard to envisage what the outcome will ultimately be, but this is one strike that is entirely reasonable.

http://forum.ibiza-spotlight.com/threads/teachers-strike-balearic-style.69647/

Teachers in the Balearic Islands in general strike for "inclusive, quality and Catalan language" education

Balearic Government cuts budget, seeks to introduce new system that substantially reduces position of Catalan • Unions, civil society associations and parties support the strike, ask Balearic Government to negotiate with teachers.

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Teachers in the Balearic Islands' public schools have started today a general strike against recent education policies by the Balearic Government. Strikers consider  that the islands' executive (in the hands of Spanish nationalist Popular Party, PP) is acting against the public system of education. On the one hand, protesters say José Ramón Bauzá-led government is reducing the education budget more than other autonomous communities in Spain. On the other, they argue that the Balearic Government seeks to impose a new trilingual model (known as TIL ) that, according to strikers, will not help pupils to improve their skills in English but will negatively affect the position of Catalan in schools. Protesters vow to continue fighting  for an "inclusive, quality and Catalan language" education system in the Balearic Islands.
The strike is supported  by the main trade union among teachers (STEI), the two main Spain-wide unions (UGT and CCOO) and the Assembly of Teachers. It also has the support of several civil society associations in the Balearic Islands. All political parties in the Balearic Parliament (except for the PP) have asked Bauzá to start negotiations with the teachers in order to substantially change, or even to withdraw, the TIL and the budget cuts.
STEI has said  that 93% of teachers have endorsed the strike today.
Court says introduction of TIL should be suspended.
Two weeks ago, the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB, Catalan acronym) provisionally suspended  the introduction of the TIL into the education system. The Court argued that the TIL should not be implemented while the appeals against it had not been settled by the judiciary. The Court also said that the way the TIL was being introduced had not all legal guarantees.
But the Balearic Government decided, the day after the suspension, to force  the implementation of the TIL, despite the court's opinion. Bauzá's executive, in an extraordinary session, passed a new decree-law in which some articles of the original law were altered but that kept its basic provisions.

"Balance" between Catalan, Spanish and English
The Government argues that the TIL is only seeking to introduce a "balanced" use of Catalan, Spanish and English into the Balearic schools. This means that all three should be used as vehicular languages, and not only as a subject (as was English). Up till now, it was Catalan the main vehicular language. Thus, the new system is set to substantially reduce the position of Catalan, the own language of the Balearic Islands.
But Balearic teachers' associations argue that only a system where Catalan is the main language in school can really balance the social situation -where Catalan is a minorised language while Spanish is the hegemonic one, known by the entire population- and grant that all pupils have a good knowledge of both languages.

In relation to English, teachers say that the Balearic Government is trying to introduce it as a vehicular language without having the proper resources (human or economic ones) that ensure enough quality of teaching. The TIL "will increase school failure" because of this, they argue.

 http://www.nationalia.info/en/news/1555  16/09/2013

Educative strike in the Balearics paralyzes public education

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Teachers strike but government stands firm  Majorca Daily Bulletin 17th September 2013 

Trade unions representing local teachers were claiming victory in their first day of industrial action yesterday alleging that 90 percent of all teachers joined the strike call. 

But the word from the local government was that just 22 percent of teachers had not gone to work  yesterday.

“A total of 4,500 teachers didn’t work yesterday out of 7,300 which are employed. If you take into account that 2,300 were covering the minimum services which had been demanded by the Balearic government, I think you can say that the strike has been a success,” said a union spokesperson yesterday.

The Balearic government dismissed the figures and said that support for the strike had been low.

Balearic President Jose Ramon Bauza said that he would not be backing down on plans to introduce a three tier learning system based around English, Catalan and Spanish. Teachers claimed that they do not have the necessary resources to introduce the system.

http://majorcadailybulletin.com/ 

THE RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS CONGRATULATES OUR HIGHSCHOOL ON THE RESULTS ACHIEVED IN "SELECTIVITAT"