Autonomous Province of Bozen - South Tyrol – Abteilung Generic

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Rumantschia

At the end of the 18th century the thoughts of the Enlightenment reached the Grisons. This new way of thinking gave the impetus which determined the institution of the first schools. Up to that point of time, there were only private schools in Reichenau and Haldenstein (next to Chur). The few who could read and write had learned to do so with religious texts. In 1818 Andrea Rosius A Porta for the first time taught with a book which was created on purpose for school tuition (Ftan in the Engadin). Only a short time later, also Mattli Conrad did the same in Andeer (Sutselva). A Porta and Conrad were both Protestant ministers and financed the lessons and the school books by themselves.
In 1843 the Canton Grisons took over school and made it compulsive for everyone. In 1846 three school books were published: one in German and two in Romansh. Still today, the Canton Grisons provides the didactic material for primary schools. Nowadays there are different curricula for German, Italian and Romansh schools.
The traditional Romansh school is one of the oldest and most well-established bilingual school systems. In contrast to all other bilingual school systems which have been created after the positive results in research in 1970, the bilingual system of the Romansh school in the Grisons developed rather accidentally, as a consequence of the canton's political, linguistic and cultural reality. Since this school system was not created by interested parents or teachers, it simply reflects normality and, therefore, the awareness of having something really precious never came up among the population.
Currently (01.01.2009), the Canton Grisons counts 190 municipalities, approximately 100 of which are located in the traditional Romansh-speaking territory. The Romansh language is taught from kindergarten to university.
The Romansh municipalities have either a Romansh or a Romansh-German kindergarten. The kindergartens have an important function for the maintenance and the fostering of the language as well as for the linguistic integration of children speaking a different language.
Most municipalities in the traditional Romansh-speaking area lead a Romansh school (in kindergarten and from the first to the forth grade of primary school only Romansh is taught; from the forth to the sixth grade German is taught as a subject).
In the municipalities with Romansh as language of tuition there are three compulsive weekly hours of Romansh also in the grades of higher secondary education. In the vocational schools and in middle school the hours of Romansh tuition vary and can either be a compulsive or a non-compulsive subject. Two Swiss universities offer a wide range of courses in Romansh language and literature (for more detailed information cf. Facts & Figures 2004, pp. 48-57). Furthermore, the University of teacher education Grisons based in Chur offers its two courses of studies for teachers at the pre-school and the primary school level in the three cantonal languages German, Romansh and Italian.
Until 2004 the didactic materials for the Romansh-speaking parts of the Grisons were published in the five different written idioms (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter, Vallader). This was linked with great effort and high expenditures. Since 2005 all didactic material published by the Canton Grisons has to be published in the standard language Rumantsch Grischun.
In August 2007 the primary schools of 23 pioneer municipalities started with the introduction of Rumantsch Grischun as written language in their first grades; in autumn 2008 and 2009 they were followed by the primary schools of further 11 respectively of further 6 municipalities.