The Diplomat in Spain

The Diplomat

More than 80,000 foreign students receive Spanish language and culture classes in several countries around the world thanks to the external action programs of the Ministry of Education.

The educational action abroad has six programs managed directly by the Ministry to promote the Spanish language and culture abroad. According to the Statistics on Educational Action Abroad of the Ministry corresponding to the 2018-2019 course, published last week, about 1,385 teachers work in these programs and 41,000 students participate, while nearly 40,000 other students attend the centres located in 11 Ibero-American countries and the bilingual institutes and sections that Spain has in nine states of Eastern Europe, Russia and China.

Globally considered, for ten years there has been a progression in the number of students receiving Spanish or Spanish courses, with an average annual increase of 1.75% and an overall increase of 18.45% since the 2008-2009 academic year.

To carry out these programs, the Ministry has 18 teaching centers owned by the Spanish State spread over seven countries in Europe, Africa and America, which serve 8,067 students and which have 680 career, interim and labor career teachers, in addition to two mixed-ownership centers with 1,642 students.

These centers are joined by the Spanish Language and Culture Groups (ALCE), which offer complementary language and culture classes to Spanish students or children of Spaniards who are enrolled in non-university levels in foreign education systems. There are about 16,200 students enrolled in 14 groups in countries such as Germany, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the United States, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

In addition, thanks to agreements signed with fifteen countries, 820 young Spanish graduates participate as conversation assistants, supporting the Spanish language and culture, and 1,379 visiting professors work in this course teaching Spanish or subjects in Spanish in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Of these, 60% teach in primary education and the rest in secondary school.