The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Pilar Alegría, presented yesterday the report El mundo estudia español 2022 (The World Studies Spanish 2022), a biennial publication that this year celebrates its tenth edition and that gathers all the information on the programs managed by the Foreign Educational Action (AEE) of the Ministry of Education.
During the event, which took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Plaza Marqués de Salamanca, in Madrid, Albares said that “almost eight percent of the world’s population” speaks or studies Spanish, a language that “is in very good health” and that “is invigorated by the promotion of teaching, by the preparation of teachers who teach it and by textbooks adapted to different geographical contexts”.
According to the minister, it is necessary to continue strengthening the teaching of Spanish abroad because it is “the great lever” of Spain abroad, “the one that creates and consolidates ties”, and, for this, educational diplomacy constitutes a “fundamental pillar and, undoubtedly, the most consolidated and the one that lasts the longest”.
With this objective, according to Albares, the training of “a large teaching corps” must be promoted, including foreign teachers of Spanish, to “guarantee that it continues to expand in places that a few decades ago were unsuspected but that today demand Spanish, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia or the English-speaking Caribbean”. The minister also announced that his Department intends to promote the teaching of Spanish in “formal education in third countries” and to encourage more international students to come to Spain to study the language.
For her part, Alegría highlighted the importance of “the Foreign Educational Action programs”, which have allowed “an increasing number of people to know how to communicate in our language”. “Foreign Educational Action is one of the most important levers to continue increasing the knowledge of Spanish in the world. It is an absolutely powerful lever to improve the cultural knowledge of our country in the rest of the world,” she said.
This year, on the occasion of the tenth edition, the study is published in a double version, with a book that collects the latest data by country and another special edition that traces the history of the Foreign Educational Action programs throughout almost a century of existence.
Data from the report
According to the report, a total of 86,538 students from around the world studied Spanish language and culture abroad, in the 2021-2022 academic year, through the centers and programs managed by Foreign Educational Action.
Specifically, among the programs, the management of 18 Spanish public schools in seven countries, with 7,975 students (data for the 2021-22 academic year) and 685 teachers, stands out. Most of them, eleven centers, depend on the Department of Education of the Spanish Embassy in Morocco. In addition to these, there are two centers of mixed ownership, with the participation of the Spanish State, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Rosario, Argentina, with 1,948 students.
AEE also manages 29 Spanish sections in 54 foreign centers in five countries (Germany, the United States, France, Italy and the Netherlands), where 10,772 students study. This program includes a mixed curriculum, with the country’s study plan and the study of Spanish Language and Literature and Spanish Geography and History, which give access to a double degree. The first section was created in 1980 in Saint Germain-en-Laye, in the Paris region, and the last in 2021 in Lille, in northern France.
Another program is the Spanish Language and Culture Groups (ALCE), in which complementary Spanish language and culture classes are taught to the children of Spaniards living abroad. There are 352 classrooms in 12 countries, in which 15,828 people study. Spain also has agreements for 14 centers in 11 countries, with 13,950 students, and 76 bilingual sections in eight countries, where 30,133 students are enrolled. Finally, the report lists the thirteen European schools, with 5,932 students in six countries, and the more than 120 International Spanish Academies (ISA), with 47,5000 students in the United States, Canada and Australia.
Another of AEE’s star programs is the Conversation Assistants program, in which 19,874 Spanish assistants and 65,935 foreign assistants have participated over the last two decades, teaching more than 20 million students. In addition, more than 15,000 Spanish teachers have participated in the program of visiting teachers abroad since its creation in 1986 and it is estimated that they have taught more than 500,000 students.
