After 13-Year Debate, Brazil Decides All High Schools Will Teach Spanish

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed into law Friday a bill making Spanish a mandatory option in all public and private Brazilian high schools as of 2010.

It is estimated that over 9.1 million high school students in South America’s largest country could become proficient in Spanish once the law is enforced.


The law had been stalled in the Brazilian Congress since 1993, when it was first presented and has undergone dozens of modifications during the course of the last 12 years.


“This will contribute to have closer cultural links with the rest of Latinamerica, including members of Mercosur”, said Francisco das Chagas Fernandes, head of the Education Ministry Basic Education Department.


During the long delay in Congress the bill encountered opposition of all sorts, not least from countries such as Germany, France and Italy who insisted that their languages be privileged in the compulsory secondary school curricula.


Brazilian students are already forced to take a foreign language in the final years of their basic education.


However high school students have always favored English even when the bill leaves the door open to other languages. Now Spanish is another option.


At preschool and elementary level, the new law leaves the teaching of Spanish as a decision to be made by each individual school.


Legislator Atila Lira of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and author of the law’s current text said that restrictions introduced over time had given the law a greater dose of “democracy”.


“The approved legal text is more democratic because the original bill gave no option to the students, who would have been forced to study Spanish” he said.


Just like in other parts of the world, demand to learn Spanish is also growing among Brazil’s 180 million people.


Spanish has gained significant importance in Brazil over the past decade mainly because of the increasing importance of Mercosur, the regional customs union that besides Brazil includes Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, as permanent members, and all other South American countries as associated members.


A Ministry of Education report revealed that for the bill to become effective, mainly in the eleven Brazilian states which have borders with Spanish speaking South American countries, they will have to contract a minimum of 1.411 Spanish teachers.


This article appeared originally in Mercopress – www.mercopress.com.

Tags:

You May Also Like

Mohammed VI, Morocco's king

Morocco’s Chancellor in Brazil to Deliver King’s Letter

Morocco's minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Mohammed Benaí¯ssa, arrives in Brazil today, March ...

In Brazil, Man and Two Women Confess to Cannibalism and Selling Human Meat Pies

According to police chief Wesley Fernando, from Garanhuns, in the northeastern state of Brazil, ...

Brazil Joins Argentina to Explore Malvinas Basin for Oil

Brazil's state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras, Argentina's YPF and Pan American Energy signed several agreements ...

Under the Left, Brazil and LatAm Have Become an Investors’ Paradise

This was supposed to be a difficult year for investors in Latin America, as ...

Brazil’s Rousseff Announces US$ 14 Bi to Build 208 Professional Education Schools by 2014

In Brazil, this past weekend, the new National High School Exam (Exame Nacional do ...

Brazil’s Bank Workers End Longest Strike Ever

Assemblies of Brazilian bank employees in 22 capitals decided to halt a strike that ...

In Brazil, Industrial Output, Car Sales and Installment Payment on Time Are All Down

In São Paulo, Brazil, the number of people who have fallen behind in making ...

Brazil Denies That It Saved Too Much to Guarantee Surplus

Brazil’s secretary of the National Treasury, Joaquim Levy, declared that the Brazilian government did ...

Top Gun

CDs or Books by Keyword, Title or Author By Sonya Alexander There was a ...

Brazzil Hates Brazil!

Brazil has a very small minority which is fiercely anti-American. These people are jealous ...

WordPress database error: [Table './brazzil3_live/wp_wfHits' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed]
SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM `wp_wfHits`