<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Students of Spanish as a foreign language have increased by almost 11% since 2018, reaching the figure of 24.2 million people who learn Spanish around the world at different educational levels, according to the Instituto Cervantes.</strong></h4> This is evident from an analysis carried out by the Institute on the number of Spanish students in the world during this period, taking as a reference the figure of 21,815,280 students included in ‘Spanish in the world. Yearbook of the Instituto Cervantes 2018’. The new figure is 24,208,813. The study reveals that the majority of Spanish language learners at different educational levels - in primary, secondary and university education, in non-formal education spaces, such as academies or language centres, or in the different branches of the Instituto Cervantes - live in the United States, with more than 8.5 million students. This is followed by the European Union with nearly 6.5 million, and Brazil, with just over four million. It also highlights the rapid growth in the number of students in formal education in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin or Gabon. Taking into account the figures broken down by level and type of teaching in countries with more than 30,000 Spanish students, the country with the highest percentage growth is Russia, which, according to available data, has gone from 32,067 registered students in 2019 (since there are no registered students in 2018) to 134,430 in 2024, which represents an increase of 319%). In Europe, the cases of Poland and the United Kingdom stand out. From 2018 to 2024, in Poland there has been an increase of 218% in the number of students, while in the United Kingdom, the increase for the same period would be 292%. In other areas of the world, the countries with the highest percentage increase in Spanish students in the period analyzed are Canada, in America (+ 76%); China, in Asia (+73%); or Senegal, in Africa, with an increase of 74%. On the other hand, Russia, Turkey and India are the countries in which Spanish is not an official language that have shown the highest percentage increase in native speakers since 2018, although these are small groups for nations with a very high population. Thus, the growth of people who have achieved native Spanish proficiency during this period in Russia is 864%, in Turkey 446% and in India 385%. This represents a total of 28,924, 5,460 and 4,855 people in this category in each country. In any case, the report warns that the documentary and statistical situation of the language learning sector is very limited throughout the world and makes invisible a group of learners who, in other editions of the Cervantes annual report, have been estimated at more than five million and who have not been taken into account in the counts. For the same reasons, the increased use of digital spaces for foreign language learning, from online courses to mobile applications, could point to even higher estimates.
