New Challenges for Bilingual Education in the Basque Country.

In this paper, we focus on bilingual education in the Basque Country. The main achievements of the Basque educational system are to be found in the progressive expansion of more intensive linguistic models, the social acceptance of teaching through and in Basque, and the positive academic results of pupils. The main problems associated with bilingual education are: (1) the difficult situation of Basque in Navarre and the French Basque Country; (2) the contradictions involved in what we refer to as linguistic model A (Castilian) of the education system, as well as the need to completely reassess it; (3) the uncertain future of Basque language use at the secondary and tertiary school levels, especially in vocational training and at the Universities; (4) the large gap between schooling and competence in the Basque language (on the one hand) and its use in everyday life (on the other); (5) the existence of two comprehensive plans for the revitalisation of Basque, and the introduction of a plurilingual programme (Basque -- Spanish -- English), and the extent to which generalisation is suitable; and finally (6) the need to review all existing bilingual educational systems to transform them into genuine intercultural programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]