The Diplomat
The Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Red Cross have signed a cooperation agreement in the educational and cultural field for the delivery of Spanish courses for migrants.
The aim of the agreement is to promote the integration into Spanish society of the migrants supported by the Red Cross, for which they will be provided with Spanish language learning through courses offered by the Instituto Cervantes, which can be given in the centers of either of the two organizations.
The text – signed on June 4 by the director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis Manuel García Montero, and the president of the Spanish Red Cross, Francisco Javier Senent, and published ten days later in the Official State Gazette (BOE) – also warns that the agreement does not imply the transfer of resources from the Instituto Cervantes to the Red Cross and that both organizations will assume their commitments through their own material and human resources, and according to their respective budgets for the year 2021, “in which they have sufficient credit”.
For the following years in which the agreement is in force, the contribution of these resources will be subject to the budgetary availabilities of each of the parties, although the forecast is estimated to be similar to that of 2021. The agreement will have an initial term of four years, but may be extended for another four years at any time before its expiration and by agreement of the signatories.
The Instituto Cervantes will provide the teachers necessary for the proper conduct of the courses, which will be supported by students of the Instituto Cervantes’ teacher training courses for teachers of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE). In no case will the personnel provided by the Instituto Cervantes have an employment relationship with the Red Cross. The courses will be offered free of charge and students who have participated in the courses will receive a certificate of achievement issued by the Instituto Cervantes. Students must pass the evaluation tests and attend a minimum of 80% of the classes for the entire course, regardless of the reason for the absences.
